The end of the world as we know it?

I've been working hard this weekend because we are driving up to Dorset for Uncle George's funeral tomorrow and that pretty much wipes out the whole day work-wise. It will be strange to see my cousins again after 25 years. When you think about it, it's downright weird to go so long and not see each other. OK, so they live in Sussex, but that's hardly the other end of the world, is it? These people are my family and yet we tell ourselves we don't have time because of work etc etc. It is beginning to dawn on me just what a sick society we are, and if I'm living in it, then that includes me too.

I keep running across mentions of Tom Hodgkinson's book How to be Free - yesterday there were copies in Fopp in Truro. Then I found a book called Living the Good Life on the website of Snowbooks while doing some industry research. Finding a new way of living which doesn't involve working for wages and paying it all out on bills and taxes is very appealing. I am convinced the money system in the West is going to come crashing down at some point, and that when it does, we will all be much better off, but I'm not at all sure when it will happen. I do think it will be in my lifetime.

In the meantime, who can imagine a different way of doing things? Exchanging money for time, labour, goods and services has been the way for so long that who can even think of a world without it? Well, I'm beginning to think about it and I'm sure far greater brains than mine have been for a long time.