REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

Within the dim light of recession, the means of production grind to a halt. Those who tie their livelihoods to such economic edifices stare into coming days with haunting worry. The chain of events linking labor to sustenance is broken.

Few would argue that massively organized legions of labor have produced an incredible mass of things, things that have kindled intellectual interest, given pleasure, expanded our horizons, and polluted our environment. But with each added layer of social complexity the distance between us and sustenance lengthens and becomes increasingly tenuous. How many of us could live for a month or two on vegetables grown in our own gardens? Very few. How many of us could manage slaughtering and cleaning a chicken to boil in a pot? Very few. How many of us know how to preserve summer's bounty in a way that will sustain us through the long months of winter? Very few. Like the world's banks, who have put too much faith in the security of long chain debt obligations, we are disconnected from the knowledge and means of sustenance.

The truth is that this economic recession may prove to be the easiest of any previous one to get through. With the social connectivity of the Internet and world-wide transportation systems already in place, most of us have at our doorstep both the means and the knowledge to reconnect to sustenance produced by our own hands or those of others. We need only put aside our worries, get to know our neighbors, volunteer what we have to trade, and make good use of opportunities all around us.