I made it

I have recently been struck over and over again with how many of our problems are of our own making. We contrive some system or institution, which becomes so ingrained that we don't want to change from it and many can't imagine anything else. Then we see problems in it and begin to solve them by more contrivances. It's like putting sugar in tea and then inventing a machine to make the tea unsweet.

In another example, I have been wrestling for the past 6 months with a 96 page permit from one government agency to the agency I work for. The permit is to operate a storm sewer system. The permit stipulates 90 pages of things we have to do to ensure that the system doesn't pollute surface waters. We have to report back to the agency that issued it all the ways we are complying. So I have been going around to various departments in the agency I work for who don't in the least think about stormwater and trying to tell them they have to comply...which of course they ignore, so I have to figure out how the stuff they are already doing fits the very specific things the permit tells us to do. All the while not actually doing anything to prevent pollution from really getting in the water.

Why do we need the permit? Because the way we build storm sewers lets pollution get into waterways? Why do we need storm sewers? Because our cities and vehicles aren't built around the natural drainage. So where does the pollution come from? From the way we build the cities via the way we build the storm sewers. This problem was realized in the 1970's and many things have been cleaned up, so it isn't hopeless. But in this case we don't want to do anything different because it is hard to change the laws and rules about building which we created for ourselves. So instead we create permits that don't do anything but create paperwork and massive programs that pretend to comply with it. And when a rational group of people found out and recently sued the government for not actually cleaning up the pollution and won, the result was an even more complex permit requiring things that look like we're doing something without really having to which results in even more complex compliance programs to look like we are complying with the permit that wouldn't result in fixes even if we really did everything it asks for.

The crazy thing is we could sum up the entire body of law in one sentence: Keep the water clean. But enter the lawyers and they say how clean, what does clean mean, what does keep mean, endlessly trying to avoid simply doing what common sense tells us to do.

I recognize this is an over-simplification...but at the root, the problem is that the system is an over-complication. Be polite, share, keep things clean, don't hurt people even accidentally. Endlessly chasing pillow and plate is the way of the sinful world and that's bad enough. But we go so far beyond even just chasing those things.

So how do I get off this train? I think I have to own the problem first of all. Getting off is not so hard if I were not constantly over-complicating. Even the very device I'm using to type this
is part of that over-complication...and I have a free OS on a rock-bottom no-contract service. All I have to do is walk away like Francis. But I keep cutting away small things without just biting the bullet and letting it all go. Trying to find ways of edging toward the thing without actually having to go there. Fears, paradigms, lies, and temptations.