Thoughts on sitting at a cafe at noon on a Thursday

Mostly I spend my time driving to work, being at work the whole day, driving home from work and in my house. Boring I know, but today I took for me and one of the things I did was sit at the outside tables of a cafe just on lunchtime. Apparently the only people out and about at this time were visibly rich or weighed down with children. I will say it time and again but; this scares me. I was listening to Jeanette Winterson (one of my favourite authors) on Radio National's The Book Show today and she was talking about the absolute futility of the modern world in the face of a dying planet. I was looking at women's handbags today, beautiful, obviously expensive handbags and all I could think was 'was that made by a slave in China?' and 'I wonder if the cow that provided that leather had a good life?'. I suspect the answers are yes, and no. Sadly. Am I just cynical that I see even the tiny excesses - handbags - as the enemy. And how much am I a hypocrite as I have a somewhat expensive handbag, I don't turn things off at the wall, I buy Coke Zero, I drive my car miles and miles every single day, I have a clothes dryer, I use a dishwasher, I grow none of my food, I occasionally eat supermarket meat. Will I be a better person if I make little flannelet squares to use instead of toilet paper, if I plant lettuce in a window box, if I quit my job, sell the car, drift out of society? More importantly will this protect me from what is to come and will this make me happy?

After the cafe I hid under the doona for a few hours then made pumpkin soup.