Notable Quote: Whither the flock?

We all think that the stuff and the energy and the accoutrements of modern life make us free, but until I took some time to do without them, I never got the chance to see the extent to which they also trapped me. Having electricity trapped me into the "freedom" of working at night, when I might have been playing with Isabella. 

After we started the no-electricity phase I got a number of e-mails from people who asked me, in all earnestness, how I would continue to make bread without the electricity to power my bread machine? My bread machine? When did we start thinking that we couldn't make bread without a bread machine? Is that freedom or enforced reliance on machines?

What's wonderful about the human race is that we move forward together. We like to be part of the flock. We go where the flock is going, and and this is wonderful, because to be part of the flock is to feel the love of community, while to move outside the flock is in some ways a rejection of love. The problem is, while we all move together with the flock, none of us takes charge of where the flock is going.

We need to figure this out and we need to figure it out fast: Where should this flock now go?

Colin Beavan, No Impact Man