goddamit.
If you know me you'll know I keep myself hella busy. But most people don't know what for. They think I'm just another city-busy-body. A distracted twenty-something checking his big-screen android phone on the bus to see if he's got any texts from his girlfriend. Fuck that.
I do what I do for one reason only.
I am determined to make a dint in this global fucking mess.
Just because I'm not heading out to chain myself to the underside of trucks shipping keystoneXL pipelines to their final destinations doesn't mean I'm not working towards the same goals those brave people were. They put themselves on the front lines, and I'm proud of them, but you'd better believe that I'm doing my part too.
First of all, I'm not in denial of what's happening out there. We are destroying the planet and each other. My friends and I figured that out thoroughly in highschool reading the book Ishmael together. Started an environmental group and all that jazz. At one point for a school project we pretended that we were aliens doing documentaries on planets and called the series 'galactic geographic', studying Earth and humans from that point of view, and that... fucked us up for good. That was 5 years ago that we sat in the cafeteria everyday on spare, talking about plausible avenues for taking action... and I think we concluded at that time that the best possible thing we could do for the planet was feed ourselves to a bear...
and even that had some negative environmental effects.
But I haven't stopped thinking about that question since then, pursuing it relentlessly. Given what I know about the state of the world, what does it make sense to do?
There's some days I think it drives me crazy enough that I almost go out shouting on the streets. There's some days when it hurts so fucking much it's hard not to. When you're watching footage of the BP gulf oil spill, goddammit, how helpless do you feel? When you hear about another school shooting. I understand why many don't let themselves feel it. I understand why you'd choose not to. It feels like the worlds going off a cliff to hell and you're in the passengers seat. And even though every bit helps, you have to know that green campaigns and gun laws aren't going to do the trick. We need deeper change than that.
So you don't see me out with picket signs. I've had to watch carefully and learn from the people who shine the brightest hope on the lives of our grandchildren. And they're not who you might think. In fact, they're ordinary looking people like me (perhaps a bold statement... the ordinary part). There are super heroes of the future in need around you. Wake the fuck up. I am one of them.
And I say this not to get in the spotlight, but because my goal, to create a more beautiful present and future, says that I have to be brave enough to declare that that's my goal, to have a chance at making the difference I hope to. I have to be able to say "I am doing this. I am a superhero. A champion for the more beautiful world my heart tells me is possible."
I just wanted to say, Connor, I'm glad to know that people like you are alive and awake, and won't stop short of that deep change that we so clearly need.
ReplyDeleteLast summer, I found hope in a wonderful article discovered in an ice cream shop in Lincoln, Nebraska. I thought you might appreciate it.
http://www.prairiefirenewspaper.com/2012/08/applied%20hope
Thanks Laura :)
DeleteI'm off to read it.
I know you do all you can. Keep at it, keep building.
Connor, Thanks. I'm 66 and have felt they way you feel my whole life. The most distressing thing to me has been the occasional lapse into numbness -the first stage of indifference. Rage is better. (So much better than 'Greed is good!"). I love you folks when I see it and feel it in your voices, your words, your actions. It does feel like a the rising tide I've been hoping for all of my life. I quit my career as an journalist and educator and serial entrepreneur and started an NGO that works -for now- primarily in Caribbean trying to break the cycle of indifference that lets millions of people in places like the Caribbean, Latin America, and elsewhere be relegated to demeaning characterizations in some post-modern minstrel show. Nearly 78% of the world's population has been excluded from the modern world. We are the poorer for it. That's 78% of the brain power, 78% of the creativity, 78% of the Earth's intelligence is ignored by a self-satisfied, punctilious elite that taps out snarky witticisms while our air thickens, the tides rise, and fewer of the sun's rays reach the surface of the earth. I do see hope in the growing number of people like you who choose to connect yourselves to the solutions. Stay up. Stay optimistic. Finish the tasks you've set for yourself. You are doing right things. I'll spend the remainder of my life following your example.
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