Jason Gardner Quote

“It's difficult to view the world outside our human context. Staying alive and paying the bills both require our attention squarely fixed on our own business. Our sprawling cities and suburbs are wonderful and frightening tributes to creative self-absorption. In them, we spend our microscheduled days bustling between work and the endless details of our private lives, turning in our moments of rest to the buzzing distractions of television and computers - all accelerating toward some ultimate, unseen fulfillment of convenience and hyperreality. Little encourages us to pause and look around, much less question the end goal of all our busyness. Anything slower than the quick cuts of TV commercials is overwhelmed by our impatience and short attention. Unfortunately, we might be missing something important - to our happiness and to our survival.”

~ Jason Gardner

From the introduction to The Sacred Earth: Writers on Nature & Spirit, edited by Jason Gardner, 1998, New World Library

Ratings and Comments


J Carlton, Calgary

Exactly right. We are under so much pressure to pay the bills "after" we've been tax raped that we work far far too much just to get by. Then when we do get a minute or two to ourselves, we spend it with family or in front of a sports venue on TV. When do we actually get a chance to stop and question what is going? It's beautiful in just how clever it really is...and sinister in that, it's working. We're losing everything we're working for, while we're so busy working for it. Except of course the majority of Obama voters...they're still sitting on their butts collecting welfare.

jim k, Austin,Tx

Right on, J Carlton.

RBESRQ
  • Reply
RBESRQ    10/19/10

Yes, as Peter Finch in Network said 'open your windows and shout I've had enough and I'm not going to take it anymore'. Carlton, your heart's in the right place but you have a lot to learn about politics and before you make statements like that. Obama is a corporatist DON"T YOU GET IT!!!!!!!!!! Bought and paid for by Phamaco, Goldman, and the Wall Street - any social initiative is just to keep the masses calm and to stop them rioting - give them cake and circus, that's what it is all about. The French have the right idea - cut the bloody gas pipes.

J Carlton, Calgary

Not so naive as you think RBE...just don't have time to type it all out. And I am quite sure that career welfare recipients played their role along with the moneyed interests, to get the Kenyan elected.

E Archer, NYC

We are fast becoming permanent indentured servants to government debt. It is to the point where the interest owed on the nation's debt is more than the so-called 'essential' government services that the money was 'borrowed' for in the first place. All this process has done is forge chains upon the necks of the people -- it has not helped them, it has yoked them. But we plug along just like the slaves of old. The study of history and monarchies shows that we have a new monarchy in which the devil is enthroned and the central banks his 'court'. All are indebted to him, all are claimed as his, and all that is and is yet to come he counts as his own. If the People truly knew who the king and his minions were, this could all be over. Instead we are deceived into right vs. left, black vs. white, jew vs. muslim, rich vs. poor -- when all we need do is pay attention to the man behind the curtain. Whomever controls the money supply for the world controls the world no matter who is elected to 'govern.'

anon, anon

Me thinks this is very appropriate for our time now, another way to tell the masses of the asses to wake up!! before they awake in a land in which they are complete slaves, basically in a big prison, the walls are invisble, but none the less there

Waffler, Smith

Obama cut taxes last year so that the avg American got $65 bucks more in their pay checks. This Admistration has not raised taxes at all in two years. The Bush tax custs wre passed as a temporary. Now the greedy pigs want to make them permanent while they are responsible substantially for putting the American people into 13 trilion of debt to the likes of China and others. As far as the quote I like it. I spend my mornings in a hot tub staring into the woods. It is the best part of my day.

Ron, Salem

It is an easy quote to see when we look back at the old ways which were not to long ago. As the great generation of our heritage passes they leave us with the knowledge of the old ways and the new age of mechanized understanding. Much good has come from our new start in 1776, but for me, to see the trap laid by the greedy administrators, banks, and rulers of these generations not to many, is the gift of knowledge left to us by our true teachers of liberty and freedom, to be able to take my stand. Archer's well chosen word ( yoked } is a holy word and bears with it insight to its roots. well done. RBESRQ your insight to violence is to be expected. Move to the country.

Publius, USA

We the People have grown complacent of liberty, having never been without it. Too many of us go about our day seeking personal enjoyment without once thinking of the rights that give us the ability to do so. Too many of us disregard the course of human events and ignore the responsibility of choosing strong rightous leaders. If this continues We will awaken as slaves on the continent Our forefathers conquered. We must rise from Our seat of complacency and cry out in one voice that liberty will not go quietly into the night, that Our rights will not perish without a fight. This country was not founded by men whose mission was to stay alive and pay the bills. This country was founded by men whose perogative was liberty and justice and they sacrificed their lives, fortune and sacred honor to accomplish that mission and give us the liberty we take for granted. Liberty is always only one generation from extinction. It will perish from the earth if we don't stop taking it for granted and pay the price it requires. And that price is, unfortunately, blood, sweat, and tears.

Johann Hollar, Saint Paul, MN

This is why people should read more books.

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