As the specter of global warming looms ahead for our children and grandchildren, everyone scrambles for alternative energy sources
so that we will be able to keep on doing the same as we have been doing–only minus the carbon.
That is not going to happen. Everything from cars to computers to satellites depends on coal. Only a total slowdown can get us off carbon and save future generations. LOOKING FOR THE REAL THING is the story of a kind of young person who might help save the future.
A L.A. high school senior seeks a simpler future away from angry kids, stressed adults, monstrous schools, everyday violence, massive traffic, choking smog, sickening pollution, junk food–seeking a little peace, a little quiet, some connection to nature.
The purpose of this book is to offer some comfort and support to those rare teenagers who feel alienated by pressure and stress from the relentless competition pursued in the schools, on television, in the news, books, films, radio, everywhere.
Some kids are less worried about being left behind and more worried about being run over, and some might like the chance to slow down and step aside and stand back enough to think, what is it all about, and what is it all for? Some may even be aware and concerned our world could become uninhabitable for future generations if we do not simplify our consumption, which means reduce our competition and aggresssion. These teens are the few who may speak up. They are not slackers or rebels so much as they are confused and looking for a way out.
Most teenagers never go to college. Many do not want to. Many do not want to wear suits and ties or drive two or three hours commuting every day. That does not mean they are lazy or gang members or delinquent or stoners. They can hate the tyranny of the testing obsession without hating the subjects tested. Some kids do not feel right going along with a mean system they do not like. Maybe they feel trapped. If such students are out there, this book is for them. Stay cool, kids!
In the book, our hero has developed an aversion to stress, which leads him to want out of Los Angeles. He has felt that rush you can get from stress, but the side effects he feels and sees around him make him back off and hang back and seek to chill out his situation. While others pant and yearn for a bloody climax in a movie, he exits the theater. He is not with the raging ambitions and angry desires and frustrations of the masses of his schoolmates. He wants a quiet life out of the rush, working with others who want to make the world better. There are kids who feel that way, and this book seeks to encourage them.
Most fall in with the competition compulsion. In school, it’s all tests. Or go to a sports event–pro, college, high school, Little League–it is relentless. Just drive a car in traffic. All day, every day, drivers risk injury and even death to get one car up at the next stop light ahead. Capitalism is competition. And Communism is in competition with Capitalism. The whole world is hyper-competitive and obsessed with consumption. And competition is stress. So competition makes everybody stressed???
Not necessarily so. Actually, people want to get stressed. The masses are so desperate for any pinch of joy that they get themselves off on whatever rush they can milk from their stress. Like the cheap thrill of beating out cars, evading an accident in a close call, or cutting in, instead of waiting one’s turn. And like the pricey thrill of spending to overeat and over-consume. So they stress on to get what rushes they can manage in lilfe. Nobody has time for anything but more stress, so they have to get some charge out of it.. And take a drink, down a pill–to help keep it going!
No! Stop! Sit! Meditate. This hyperactive physical world is not the only existence. We must kick the addiction to stress and consumption. Life can be good without them. And humanity must tone things down to survive.
