Experience hunting junkies

After our vacation I have started to look at children's program with completely new eyes. I have started to reflect (critically, of course, whatelse?) upon how we are bringing up our kids in this modern world. It all started we me recognizing that some foods are addictive, and realizing that the major portion of the standard intake of food is actually based on this addiction. Through our eating habits we are constantly seeking for new injections of addictive substances (sugar & wheat, coffee & alcohol, heck even chocolate!). Eating is no longer about fulfilling our body's necessity of food, it is about bringing us pleasures. With the wide range of foods from all parts of the world, we have the luxury to pick and choose whatever feels right. I guess this is not something new, we are all aware of this, at least to some extent. Right?

Then I started to move away from my thoughts on food, and started to look at lifestyles. And particularly lifestyles of families with small kids. And what do I find? Well, that since our modern day life has granted us with so much free time (this because we do not need to hunt&gather&grow our own food, since it is flewn in from faraway places) we now also seek ways to fill our free time with more and more experiences. The meaning of life has become hunting new experiences, whether it is about what that last technical gadget, or sailing boat can bring or what a children's adventure park has to offer, doesn't matter. It seems, the bigger, the better. And we all scream for more, more, more. The amusement parks are crammed in the summer. Children's mecca such as "the World of Astrid Lindgren" and "Legoland" are so crammed with people that you become dizzy just trying to park outside.

I now have to say no thank you to these places. Thank goodness we didn't make it to Legoland this summer. In my vacation experiences from anno 2012 I will cherish those moments that were far away from "addictive experiencing hunting". And those places were for example a swim in a nice little lake somewhere near Astrid Lindgren's (true) childhood neighborhoods, or just sitting on the beach of nothern Jylland (Denmark), watching the chidlren run in and out of Skagerack waves. That was a true pleasure for me, and I also think the children liked it a lot.

Still, I feel that I need to get back to basics in the summer time. I have said it before, I will say it again: I need to dig my hands in the dirt. I need to start cultivating my own veggies...Traveling through Sweden, I realized how much precious beautiful land we have at our disposal here up in the North - without any use anymore! (I do not count wheat as a useful use of land). Hello, look what the EU has done - people have stopped caring for their land - why bother, when Spain can ship over some cheap fruits and veggies to us...and we can be happy and free during the summer...hunting experiences...

Then again, this summer has been so rainy that there is little hope of a good harvest anyway. So, really, why bother? Maybe, just maybe because of escaping the experience hunting? Finding another meaning of life than endless shopping and entertainment lifestyle.

Dunno. But I feel kinda lost.

(pst: really, I was amazed by Småland's beautiful landscape, the cows out eating grass, the sheep in the wood... I think Sweden has a lot more to offer than only wheat and rapseed fields - so much more common in Finland)