Eli's World

I decided to finally start a blog about Eli's world. We as a family do not believe in sharing a lot of our pictures for the world to see, especially children's pictures (I'm sure I will end up explaining here at some point), so there may not be an abundance of baby pictures and videos that you would expect from a "baby" blog. I mostly just want to record things that I find about the world Eli is growing up in, knowledge that empowers me to be a better consumer and parent, and a better way of living that is hopefully a little less toxic, a little less consumerist (which really is the reason so much toxic is used to make the things we never needed until now). Call it back to nature, sustainable, green, tree hugger, crunchy, granola, organic, toxin-free, clean-living, whatever you would like. I believe one day we could all agree that for a couple of generations, chemical companies have basically run our lives and ruined our planet without our consent (or the planet's consent for that matter), and by educating ourselves and getting back to the more natural ways, we could all be healthier, happier, and better to the mother earth, who has been nothing but kind to us. I'm not opposed to technological advances and the science of chemistry, which happened to be my favorite subject in school, I am just opposed to the wide-spread use of proven harmful ones that are unnecessary or not essential, think anti-foaming agents in French Fries, or artificial fragrances in basically everything else.

I'm not as studious as some and usually do not have the patience to put together beautiful charts and graphs like I should/know how to do thanks to my training as an economist/banker/data analyzer, but I will at least hopefully get the sources linked up so you can see where I am getting my information and make the decisions for yourselves. There are people whose jobs are doing exactly that, combing through research and getting the information out there in an easy-to-digest form (seriously, who has the time to read about real issues any more), so I will leave it up to them to do what they do best. I hope this place, if nobody cares to come or keep coming, at least will be my own source of reference when I need to know just what exactly that toxic chemical is called in that particular (fill in the blank) that we use/eat everyday.

Ultimately, I hope the blog Eli's world can indeed make the slightest difference at least to those of you invited to read it, so that your world and Eli's world will be a better world. I may eventually turn into a more public advocate for a lot of the issues discussed here, but for now I just thought I'd share my thoughts and learning with friends and family. It's that seventh generation idea, and in addition to the concerns for the environment, it's also concern for the communities we impact outside of the US because of our modern lifestyles.But I know this isn't the first thing on everyone's mind, and that's totally understandable. I hope at least for your own sake, assuming you'd want to share a healthy, happy, long life with Eli, you would hear me out and maybe walk away with a few things that will make a little difference. I hope Eli's world is a better world than mine, and I hope we can all work together to contribute to that change, one little step at a time.

With love, in Long Island City, New York.

Me and 28-day-old Eli