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Gonna Spend My Cash

“Why do you buy organic bananas?” asked an older visitor. “They have a peel, so pesticides won’t transfer into what you eat.”

I told him that I had seen a documentary that showed pesticides being sprayed on a banana plantation while workers were picking the bananas, because the corporation that owned the plantation didn’t want to stop the harvest long enough to spray pesticides and interrupt the work. So for me, it wasn’t about the bananas, but about the workers.

“I hear that,” commented our visitor. He then went on to relate that when he was young, picking hops in the Fraser Valley, the company also sprayed pesticides while the hops were being picked.

We try to keep ethical and sustainability issues in mind when we make our purchases. Fair Trade coffee and chocolate are frequent purchases of ours. If you search “Child Labour and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry”, you will come across an article by the ‘Food Empowerment Project’ that gives some details about how the chocolate industry is involved in the worst possible labour conditions in the world in our time.

Yet, we are inconsistent in our efforts, even as far as buying chocolate. Some fair trade and organic goods are only sold in stores that are some distance away from our home, and thus we would have to spend more time, money, and fuel, to go and purchase those goods – which creates an opportunity cost and additional environmental sustainability issues in itself.

Every purchasing decision is on some level a compromise, and there are so many such decisions that have to be made. The individual consumer in our society should not have to bear this burden alone – but our society is insufficiently committed to ethical purchases, production, and environmental sustainability, and mostly just sees it all as a bother, so it seems unlikely that governments will be elected in the near future which will encourage and support change on a broader level. There are powerful corporate and political forces that benefit from the status quo, combined with a societal inertia and malaise, so this is likely to be an ongoing issue.

While I want to continue moving toward an ethical and sustainable lifestyle, I also really do enjoy getting paid. Getting a paycheque provides a bit of a sense of recognition for work accomplished, and I feel that it’s natural to want to celebrate that. There’s a cloud of guilt that lingers over progressives, because of the level of ethical compromise involved in almost every act of every day. Even sitting at this keyboard to type has environmental consequences.

So my song “Gonna Spend My Cash” relates to that internal conflict of feeling joy and wanting to celebrate my remuneration, while at the same time wanting to be a more ethical and sustainable consumer. I haven’t ever heard a song like it, so it needed to be written, in my opinion. Here are the lyrics.

Gonna Spend My Cash

Gonna spend my cash, ‘cuz I got my pay
There’s value in a dollar and that’s okay
Gonna spend my cash, but watch where it goes
Cuz I want it to be love and not blood that flows

I’d be lying if I’d say gonna give it all away
Got a family with dreams and bills to pay
I earn, so I’ll share, but I won’t throw it away
There’s a balance in the balance, and a price to pay

It would be great to get around the degradation
It would be great to get rid of financial oppression
It’s tough to fight a system that I live in
To avoid a depression, but reduce my possession

Gonna spend my cash, ‘cuz I got my pay
There’s value in a dollar and that’s okay
Gonna spend my cash, but watch where it goes
Cuz I want it to be love and not blood that flows
Cuz I want it to be love and not blood that flows

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When I See You Fly; Celebrating Youth and Their Accomplishments

Ultimately, what my children or my students do is their accomplishment, not mine. I can encourage, model, and suggest ideas, but I can’t and shouldn’t claim their success as mine. What I can do is celebrate that success and be happy for them.

Our children, our students, our mentees, need to know and feel that what they have done is a result of their efforts. To claim or point out a parental or educator role in that success is in some way to try to take it from them, to diminish their efforts – and that detracts from and discourages young people and other students from making those efforts. We are all better off when our young people and the lifelong learners among us are celebrated and acknowledged, because that pushes our whole society forward with their innovations and energy.

I originally wrote ‘When I See You Fly’ to celebrate my own kids, but I wanted it to be applicable to celebrate anyone’s accomplishments and growth. The first time I used it was for a video for our middle son’s grade 6 graduation party, along with slides featuring his classmates. That video was never made public, as a result of general privacy concerns. I made another video for my YouTube channel featuring our 3 boys, where the photos in the slides went with the lyrics of the song. This latest recording is music only. I wanted it to be available for others to use in the same way that I used it to celebrate our boys – for their personal celebration videos and occasions.

Here are the lyrics;

You’re so much more than just potential
Long ago, you burst out of your eggshell
And in the intervening hours
You were like that superhero
Learning to control the powers
Of the suit that you were building

Everyone has their moments
Of flapping, of falling, of faltering
The strongest winds may be blowing
Against you so hard, you’re not sure you can keep going

But the moments do pass
I see you take off, see you lift off
You are darting and gliding way up high

And when I see you fly, I fly
You’re soaring through the skies
My spirits also rise
As you’re free among the clouds
I want you to know
That even though I’m here below
When I see you fly, I fly

It’s not about keeping you on the ground
And not just to know that you are safe and sound
I’d love to see the treasure that you found
You stop, and then away you bound

And when I see you fly, I fly
You’re soaring through the skies
My spirits also rise
As you’re free among the clouds
I want you to know
That even though I’m here below
When I see you fly, I fly

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