Your ramblings made sense to me MistsofSpring.

My mother and grandmother, the rural girls, would often tell me how their community worked together for shared goals.  How they created their own mini day cares when the crops had to be harvested and all the "able" bodies, male and female would join together to help each farm.  Younger women would look after the children.  Older women would prepare the food.  The rest helped with the harvest.

With access to less "stuff" there was a greater appreciation for what one had instead of a despair for what one didn't have.  My father, the city boy, taught me that "quality" was superior to "quantity" and to expect to pay a price for things that lasted.  It wasn't "how much you had" but whether what you had was good.

All these influencers shared something in common, they were financially very poor but rich in dignity and self reliance.  They not only taught, but lived, the ideal that doing the best you could was a reward in and of itself.

This upbringing has left me at odds in a world where "how many toys you own when you die" defines your success at life.  I often can not reconcile the despair of some with the conspicuous consumption of others.  This inability is exacerbated by where I live, a community of haves and have nots and where toys and excess abound. 

I'm also at odds with the new corporate philosophy that excellence is no longer rewarded or respected but the ability for one to play politics and remain silent in the face of a company's malfeasance.  There is no longer the pretense of "the Company" as community caregiver.  Philanthropy has been replaced by acquisition.

Every attempt I have made to steer away from this current state has been thwarted and sadly I perceive the infection pervasive.   I find myself withdrawing from it all.  Turning inwards instead of outwards.  Turning off modes of communication that attack my ideology.  Fantasies of how to opt out of the whole messy affair fill my day dreams; yet responsibilities to others tether me to this world and, so, I plod on.

So thank you MistsofSpring for showing me that someone still has the energy to seek solutions.

LB

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The peculiar malaise of our day is air-conditioned unhappiness, the staleness and stuffiness of machine-made routine.

     Eugene B. Borowitz

I am right on line with both of you... not sure I want to live in a little interconnected dorm - though I certainly get the organizational appeal.  Instead I lean towards creating good relationships and reducing my needs & desires for extra junk.  I've enjoyed learning to feed my family on less money & less processed junk, and sourcing meat from a good place when we do eat it.  It has been fun to adapt to rain barrels and clotheslines and less a/c.  I love a trip to Value Village when I find house items to put to use. 
The convenience of paper plates and instant gratification gets me agitated, and I really struggle with the dilemma of want/need.  That is a constantly moving line in a world of affluence/affluenza.  Are we the poor ones?  or the wealthy ones?  Depends on the day, the need, the want.  So am I wealthy enough to donate generously?  or am I pinching pennies enough to get my kids to school and let them enjoy growing up with opportunities that will inspire them? 

I bristle when given a gift from a friend - I'd rather the gift by time together and appreciation for our connection, rather than an item that makes me feel I must reciprocate.   We have a culture that says 'buying' is our way of showing value, and that drives me crazy. 

I like some toys - a pretty house nicely furnished, good architecture, lovely fresh food on the table, and I appreciate some trinkets - cool cars, a new (to-me) outfit, experiences at festivals or vacations etc - but I have to figure out how to justify them.  It would be easier to let such things go if other people seemed to do the same.

Maybe I'm off topic a bit - Convenience is at the root of a lot of trinkets and waste, but it is our understanding of relationship to one another that fuels our desires and values.  I think.  Maybe I'm rambling too ;)

You make sense, but our cities are designed all wrong.   It is hard to walk to shopping when it is several miles away, especially when you get older.

A gradual change of the design of our cities will take decades, and leave the question of what we are to do with the existing huge suburbs in which so many of us live.   I can't see any quick fixes on this.  Let us be realistic.

Many of your other ideas (e.g., fast food) we ​​can​ do something about, but I confess to falling off the wagon from time to time.  Sometimes I am so tired after work.  

As everyone working at work with a team knows, shared items tend to be misplaced and not taken care of. If you charge a fee for the use of it, people might as well buy it and think that then, they would have it at east available when they need it.

In my new neighbourhood, I get to use my neighbours clothesline and another neighbours wheelbarrow. At least, that's a start.

One shouldn't need to feel guilt if for no other reason than guilt leads to inertia, inaction, and ultimately withdrawal.  There should be a balance between work and pleasure.  It is when the one takes over from the other that problems arise.

My father would spend his hard earned money on an expensive suit.  He worked hard and saved for it.  There was double the pleasure there.  My one grandfather worked hard and saved for a fine fedora, he wore that hat for 60 years.  My other grandfather worked hard and saved for gladiola bulbs, once spending $25.00 for one bulb!  To my grandmother it was money wasted but to my grandfather it was years of pleasure watching those flowers bloom.

There was a balance between work and pleasure.

I also often think about air conditioners - particularly as the heat of July takes me in a firm grip.  Air conditioners have their place and need, yet  I am amazed at people who set their A/C at temperatures that in winter they would feel were inhabitable.  62o in summer; 82o in winter!  No wonder their bodies never adjust, there is no balance.

The other danger I see is that instead of going outside people now stay indoors with their artificial climates.  The sultry summer evenings when a neighbourhood would come alive with the voices of people, children jumping through sprinklers, a mob around the ice cream truck, are gone.  The streets filled with silence interrupted only by the hum of the air conditioner.

I was recently told about a cottage that had been sold.  It was on a point of land, on an island.  The new owners built a fence, as high as our community bylaws would permit, from one side to the other.  The design of the cottage was such that one could not see the neighbouring cottages nor were the neighbours even very close.  There was no purpose for that fence - except the symbolic act of shutting out others.

That is what our society is doing.  It is shutting out the world.  Hiding behind fences and a mountain of toys.  Creating artificial environments while destroying the real.  We pave over acres of land because we do not want dusty cars and then complain of the heat because there is no cool grass or shade from trees.

We've lost the town square to big blocks that are not even connected as the old indoor malls once were.  We can not walk from store to store because of the blistering heat or numbing cold, so we jump in our car and drive from one to the other.  We no longer know the shop keeper because the owner has been replaced with a nameless faceless entity of a corporation.  We've lost our connection to the humanity of our economy.

We've lost our neighbourhoods and as a result our neighbours.  We share neither our joy or loss with others but cocoon ourselves with inanimate objects and artificial pleasures.

There is lots of guilt but there is no balance.  It is balance that is needed.

LB

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Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes exactly the right measure of himself, and holds a just balance between what he can acquire and what he can use.

     Peter Mere Latham (1789-1875)