I’m Done with Gillette

Another step toward living sustainably, I’m done with disposable razors.

Here’s why . . . .

• having seen the enormous amount of money poured into persuading guys to upgrade their shaving experience, “have you tried the new Quattro experience“
• having even tried this 4-blade extravaganza and finding it didn’t make me look any more like David Beckham than when I started
• having clocked that the whole plastic-and-metal thing is certainly not recyclable
• knowing that the manufacturers are using the principle of planned obsolescence, making blades that will dull instead of longer-lasting alternatives
• knowing its up to me to vote with my dollar . . . .

I decided it was time to change, out went the old razors, in came a cut-throat razor and a good deal of careful learning.

OK, it isn’t as quick (I’m not trying this in the shower!!), and it requires a bit more gubbins (figure on a brush, strop and maybe even a block to keep the blade sharp).  And I am still at the stage where I’m nicking myself a little each time I shave but the satisfaction can’t be beaten and the shave is smooth and lovely (my gorgeous wife Sand says so).

Chalk another one up for the simple life.

The Killing Fields of Planet Earth

There is some information which is hard to really grasp, no matter how many times we hear it.  The impact you and I are having on the animals, plants and other life forms that share space with us on Planet Earth is just this kind of information.

I could toss out a few facts;

• we’re right in the early phases of a mass extinction
• half of all other life forms might be extinct in 50 years
• there are only about 3 000 tigers left in the world
• approximately 20 species go extinct every day

Its still hard to get.  What’s more all of this is driven by the human population, that’s you and me! When land is transformed for human use, farming, mining, urban sprawl or new roads, we either destroy the habitat where other species live or we gobble up their food and water.  Hungry humans now consume 40% of all organic matter that grows on Earth, starving other species into extinction.

You and me are, unfortunately, inextricably linked into this.  This might be news to us – I was never told this as I was growing up – but every single thing I consume is part of this systematic extermination.  That’s right – everything I consume, my food, clothes, the electricity that lights the house, the petrol, diesel or jet fuel that moves me around, that wonderful and gratifying little something I just bought to make me feel better, my gizmos and gadgets, they are all based on using up the world around us as a one-off giant binge.

Its not surprising we don’t grasp this readily and easily, its very frightening to wake up to the impact we have on the world around us.  We seldom see the consequences of our lifestyle as we enjoy it, and you can bet the producers, manufactures and retailers don’t want you to know at what cost they are making profit from our consumption.

Its also very abstract – I don’t have a relationship to the tigers, butterflies, fungi and bacteria that I’m killing when I visit the shops.  I don’t really understand how important biodiversity is to me, I don’t have to think about pollination when I bite an apple, let alone the zillions of hidden processes that contribute to the delicate balance of life on Earth – but I depend on them all.

So what!  I say Live Lightly on the Planet.  Wendell Berry says;

We can not live harmlessly or strictly at our own expense; we depend upon other creatures and survive by their deaths. To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of creation. The point is, when we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament; when we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration…in such desecration, we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.