I welcome the economy's recovery, but it is hardly a panacea for our ills, real and imagined.
So many of our ills are, in fact, imaginary. Like the notion that we're hurting economically or if we had more money we could purchase more stuff, which will solve our problems. Wrong.
The first item the average person buys when he gets ahead economically is a car. Car sales are increasing, but the last thing we need is more cars. Our roads are already jammed, with the air we depend on for life increasingly polluted.
Motorized vehicles are also direct contributors to our obesity problem and our national health and fitness disaster. Most of us get no more daily exercise than walking to and from our vehicles. We're not poor or in a recession. We're rich and paying steep prices for our wealth. So many of us are sick, depressed, hooked on cigarettes, alcohol, prescription drugs, recreational street drugs, violent video games, the vast wasteland of television and other entertainments of dubious merit.
Most of us eat fattening, artery-clogging foods at every meal. Our rates of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity and cancer are sky high. All of these are outcomes of our extravagant lifestyles.
Financial recovery mostly means the average person will turn his cash into trash, mindlessly consuming material goods. We're much more in need of a renaissance in our nation's physical, mental and spiritual health, along with a re-examination of what constitutes true happiness, well-being and abundance.
Jerome Kellner
Kahului
