Saturday, September 26, 2020

Do you live a simple life? Take this test. .(Answers posted)

Do you live a simple life? Take this test. 
(Answers posted)

Austerity brings awareness, it gives us time to plan out, to review our goals.

Dr Abe V Rotor
Former Professor, The Graduate School and Faculty of Arts and Letters
University of Santo Tomas

Part 1 - True or False
1. Although asceticism generally promotes living simply and refraining from luxury and indulgence, not all proponents of simple living are ascetics. T
2. Home gardening could be the layman’s answer to food shortage affecting millions of people worldwide. T

3. Global Warming is a culprit to projected food shortage beca
use of the erratic behavior of our climate, worsened by increasing frequency and intensity of force majeure. T
4. Chemical pesticides and fertilizers have improved productivity of farmlands as well as enhanced sustainable production. F

5. Farmers and their families live on edible wild life species of freshwater fish, crustaceans, mollusk and amphibians. T (to a certain degree)



6. Fear of shortage in food and other needs is amplified and exaggerated. Improved technology coupled with proper management is the answer to allay this fear. F

7. Before buying food in packs, first read the label, and be sure there is no MSG or Vetsin as ingredient. Vetsin has many harmful effects, especially to children. T 

8. Vitamins and minerals are concentrated in the vegetable,  not in its rind or skin. Thus you have to peel kalabasa, pipino, talong, patola and the like. F

9. The sea is nearly 4 km deep, and up to 12 km at its deepest – which means that fishing has barely scratched the surface of the sea, thus there is no felt danger of depletion of resources. F

10. GM rice or golden rice contains yellow pigment of daffodils which is rich in Vit A. Vit A may be needed by the body but an overdose of it may be deleterious to health such as allergy. This is the first local case of “biopharming” – implanting drugs and medicine in food plants to act as food and medicine at the same time. T

11. What economists insist that the road to the good life is a economic development, and any country that remains underdeveloped will never have a taste of it. F

12. There are limits to growth*; it cannot be a perfect progression. Somehow the curve becomes an inverted C, which means that the factors of growth become the antithesis of growth itself. T 

Global Warming in acrylic by the author 

13. Buy only reliable brands of tools, and if your budget allows, invest in lifetime tools such as Rigid, Stanley, Makita, Black and Decker, Bosch, Coleman, Crossman, Dremel, Sandvik, El Toro, to name a few. Be sure these are not imitations. T  (There are reliable brands as well.)

14. Home for the Golden years must be kept as simple as possible, orderly, clean and healthy, removing things that may cause accidents.

15. Austerity brings awareness, it gives us time to plan out, to review our goals. T

16. HiTech is expensive and it is the consumer who ultimately pays it. It is to the people the users of Hi Tech charge its cost. Austerity calls for a moderation in technology. Austerity and innovative technology are compatible. Innotech is people’s technology. T

17. Modeling of successful projects such as coops (farmers multipurpose cops), agro-eco center (Cabiokid), Kabsaka (Sta. Barbara, Iloilo), mangrove farming, seaweed farming, Irrigators’ association. These and others ride on Filipino trait of gaya-gaya. Gaya-gaya put to good use. Peer teaching and learning is effective among the masses, and should be complementary with formal education. Austerity opens a gateway to look into models we can adopt under our local conditions. T

18. “Necessit
y is the mother of invention," so “crisis is the sphinx of survival.” (Story of the Sphinx.) What is it that walks on all fours in the morning, two at noon and three in the evening?”) Crisis is Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest. It rewards the strong, eliminates the weak, humbles the proud, deepens the soul, and elevates the spirit. - of those who can make it.” Crisis is the time to test man’s soul.” Soul is the ultimate of man’s capacity to survive. (Thesis of Victor Frankl in his famous book,  A Search for Meaning) T

19. You practice the 7Rs in Waste Management: Reduce, Recycle, Refurbish, Renovate, Restore, Reserve, Revere (and Rotor – Rotate). These 7Rs are vital tools in living an austere life. T

20. The more closely related supply and demand cycle in a given community, the more self reliant the community is. This means that in that community, people produce what they consume; consumption motivates production and vice versa. This according to Dr. Anselmo Cabigan is a basic tenet of austerity, because the self-reliant community becomes less dependent on external factors and the vagaries of the larger environment. T



Part 2 Test on Simple Living
“Odd-man out” Pick out the unrelated word.
1. Asceticism, simplicity, materialism, austerity (simple living)
2. Tolstoy, Schweitzer, Gandhi, Hemingway (Disciples of simple living)
3. Darwin, Rousseau, Marx, Thoreau (Philosophers of simplicity in living)
4. Pinakbet, karekare, bagnet, bulanglang (vegetable recipe)
5. Bangos, tilapia, dalagang bukid, hito (one is not a freshwater fish)
6. Gabi, kamote, cassava, katuray (root crops)
7. Kalabasa, malunggay, pipino, ampalaya (Family of Cucurbits)
8. Lato, nori, lumotsea cucumber (edible sea weeds)
9. Kamatis, luya, sibuyas, paminta (sinigang recipe)
10. Luya, tanglad, pandan mabango, gabi (food spices, additive)

TRIVIA: What is Epicureanism?
Based on the teachings of the Athens-based philosopher Epicurus flourished from about the fourth century BC to the third century AD. Epicureanism upheld the untroubled life as the paradigm of happiness, made possible by carefully considered choices. Specifically, Epicurus pointed out that troubles entailed by maintaining an extravagant lifestyle tend to outweigh the pleasure of partaking in it. He therefore concluded that what is necessary for happiness, bodily comfort, and life itself should be maintained at minimal cost, while all things beyond what is necessary for these should either be tempered by moderation or completely avoided.

The Limits to Growth is a 1972 report on the exponential economic and population growth with a finite supply of resources, studied by computer simulation. Commissioned by the Club of Rome, the findings of the study were first presented at international gatherings in Moscow and Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 1971.

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