Culture of excess

Funny that I was just discussing with the kids the concept of our "culture of excess", and this evening when I watched "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" with the usual bunch of delinquents, there was a movie that embodied the implications of such a culture and its terrible impact on us if we can't find an "off" switch to hit, and quickly too.

Our culture of excess is the result of our success at turning every natural resource available into food or other consumables for our convenience. Like the food making machine in "Meatballs", our own industrial processes have gone into overdrive, cranking out more, bigger, better(?)... things, and as fast as they can crank, we likewise guzzle, utilize and (up)chuck, like we were in a race to see who would break down and give up first.

At first, it's all good. People need food to live and to have a constant supply of food might well be like it all just fell from the sky. But the more people get, the more people want until the whole system is all about providing more than is possible to want, without heed to the consequences. That is, until disaster strikes then we do what we do best -- survive, and learn from the experience.

But instead of being preachy, "Meatballs" provides a such banquet of laughs and gags that the idea and need for social responsibility over indiscriminate consumption is easy to swallow.