Forward to New Eden
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If we can't learn the easy way...
When I was a kid I thought the word "stubborn" always went with the word "Irish". Lately, though, I'm starting to think we humans are a pretty stubborn bunch as a whole. We keep fighting, for instance, despite clear evidence that both sides lose in every conflict - nobody wins. A thousand different signs have given us warning to stop polluting, yet we continue to stay stuck-on-stupid. We know we're supposed to try to love one another, but we do the easier rather than the right thing. And you can be sure every time we start something good - which inevitably involves change - there's going to be a backlash out of ignorance and fear of the change.
So now we sit at a moment in history absolutely unique, called by events to act together for the good of all, and what do we do? We do the same type of things we've always done. We sit on our asses and argue about the problems - as if our own individual angles and wording were central to the reality of them. Well, how do you define it? Is this a moral problem, as Al Gore thinks? Is it a technological problem that can be solved by research. Is it a problem at all? Maybe it's all of the above! Maybe there is a good reason the planet's in this mess, and it has nothing to do with any one part of it or blaming any one.
Maybe this is the moment in this planet's history when our job is to recognize that all life is one. Maybe it's time to grow up as a species.
In the 1970's I lived and worked with a mining/farming family in West Virginia. The mother would sometimes startle me by saying to one of her children, "Quit yer piddledickin' around and..." do whatever task we were doddling at. Well, that's the way I feel like talking to people today. What needs to be said or done to awaken people to the need to get in to gear to deal with the earthwide emergency that is coming? Should I holler, should I cuss, should I be rude, should I point out all the terrible outcomes possible if we don't get together?
I have no desire to scare people to death. I have no desire to be correct in concluding that we are going into a time of terrible difficulty. I wish I were wrong, but I doubt it. The signs are clearly visible, to those unafraid to open their eyes. We just went through a blizzard and we can't predict the next environmental difficulty coming to our part of the world. But one thing is sure - If we work together it will go better.
My mother raised seven sons. I remember her so often saying, "Fight over it, nobody gets it". And she was right. Either she would take the toy - acting as Moral Umpire - or we would end up breaking it - sort of poetic justice for our not getting along. "Serves ya right!" she'd say, when one of us caught karma for being greedy or mean or whatever via a skinned knee or some other tragedy.
And that's what I'm going to say when some of our stubbornness gets it's inevitable comeuppance. Serves us right for being selfish and greedy, just like Mommy said. It's a hard way to learn, but it's learning nevertheless. Notice I said OUR stubbornness. I admit I've been just as stubborn as everybody else.
I don't look forward to the difficult lessons coming which would have been easier had we been more open-minded and open-hearted. But the past is the past, and severe climate change is inevitable now, in my opinion. I do have faith in a Loving God or a Benign Universe or however you want to put it, and I am not so arrogant as to think I know the future - especially since the future is always flexible as the result of changed opinions, attitudes, and decisions of billions of people. But I do have something to say to the part of each of us which just can't seem to get in gear to make changes for the better:
WAKE UP! NOW!
Stop mowing lawns, we need all the plant growth we can get. Bring your biodegradables to the nearest composter to be returned to the soil. Stop buying fake food and start growing your own. Stop doing fake things like pretending you're hip, green, environmentally evolved and morally superior. Get to work doing REALLY useful things, not just rolling with your current way of making a living. Or maybe I should say, yes, the ways we're doing things now are useful, but there are more useful alternatives coming. The old way really is dying, and we're not going back.
Grand new building projects for economic development are not going to happen. We're going to be hard put just to stay alive. The economy is NEVER going to be the same, the Mon-Fayette Expressway is never going to be built, you are NOT going to have a quiet retirement, your grandchildren are NOT going to lead comfortable and long lives, you can forget about that new car, and you'd better pay attention to the one you have because it's going to be the last. All just my opinions, of course.
Remember your loved ones still need you regardless of the lowered expectations for the future. If you've the deepened appreciation for life that happens when you realize it's not forever, that awakens a deeper joy at each moment of our fragile lives. It really is scientific that this time and space are but threshold to even better. Wake up tomorrow refreshed, we have many changes to go through. Enjoy.
======
If we can't learn the easy way...
When I was a kid I thought the word "stubborn" always went with the word "Irish". Lately, though, I'm starting to think we humans are a pretty stubborn bunch as a whole. We keep fighting, for instance, despite clear evidence that both sides lose in every conflict - nobody wins. A thousand different signs have given us warning to stop polluting, yet we continue to stay stuck-on-stupid. We know we're supposed to try to love one another, but we do the easier rather than the right thing. And you can be sure every time we start something good - which inevitably involves change - there's going to be a backlash out of ignorance and fear of the change.
So now we sit at a moment in history absolutely unique, called by events to act together for the good of all, and what do we do? We do the same type of things we've always done. We sit on our asses and argue about the problems - as if our own individual angles and wording were central to the reality of them. Well, how do you define it? Is this a moral problem, as Al Gore thinks? Is it a technological problem that can be solved by research. Is it a problem at all? Maybe it's all of the above! Maybe there is a good reason the planet's in this mess, and it has nothing to do with any one part of it or blaming any one.
Maybe this is the moment in this planet's history when our job is to recognize that all life is one. Maybe it's time to grow up as a species.
In the 1970's I lived and worked with a mining/farming family in West Virginia. The mother would sometimes startle me by saying to one of her children, "Quit yer piddledickin' around and..." do whatever task we were doddling at. Well, that's the way I feel like talking to people today. What needs to be said or done to awaken people to the need to get in to gear to deal with the earthwide emergency that is coming? Should I holler, should I cuss, should I be rude, should I point out all the terrible outcomes possible if we don't get together?
I have no desire to scare people to death. I have no desire to be correct in concluding that we are going into a time of terrible difficulty. I wish I were wrong, but I doubt it. The signs are clearly visible, to those unafraid to open their eyes. We just went through a blizzard and we can't predict the next environmental difficulty coming to our part of the world. But one thing is sure - If we work together it will go better.
My mother raised seven sons. I remember her so often saying, "Fight over it, nobody gets it". And she was right. Either she would take the toy - acting as Moral Umpire - or we would end up breaking it - sort of poetic justice for our not getting along. "Serves ya right!" she'd say, when one of us caught karma for being greedy or mean or whatever via a skinned knee or some other tragedy.
And that's what I'm going to say when some of our stubbornness gets it's inevitable comeuppance. Serves us right for being selfish and greedy, just like Mommy said. It's a hard way to learn, but it's learning nevertheless. Notice I said OUR stubbornness. I admit I've been just as stubborn as everybody else.
I don't look forward to the difficult lessons coming which would have been easier had we been more open-minded and open-hearted. But the past is the past, and severe climate change is inevitable now, in my opinion. I do have faith in a Loving God or a Benign Universe or however you want to put it, and I am not so arrogant as to think I know the future - especially since the future is always flexible as the result of changed opinions, attitudes, and decisions of billions of people. But I do have something to say to the part of each of us which just can't seem to get in gear to make changes for the better:
WAKE UP! NOW!
Stop mowing lawns, we need all the plant growth we can get. Bring your biodegradables to the nearest composter to be returned to the soil. Stop buying fake food and start growing your own. Stop doing fake things like pretending you're hip, green, environmentally evolved and morally superior. Get to work doing REALLY useful things, not just rolling with your current way of making a living. Or maybe I should say, yes, the ways we're doing things now are useful, but there are more useful alternatives coming. The old way really is dying, and we're not going back.
Grand new building projects for economic development are not going to happen. We're going to be hard put just to stay alive. The economy is NEVER going to be the same, the Mon-Fayette Expressway is never going to be built, you are NOT going to have a quiet retirement, your grandchildren are NOT going to lead comfortable and long lives, you can forget about that new car, and you'd better pay attention to the one you have because it's going to be the last. All just my opinions, of course.
Remember your loved ones still need you regardless of the lowered expectations for the future. If you've the deepened appreciation for life that happens when you realize it's not forever, that awakens a deeper joy at each moment of our fragile lives. It really is scientific that this time and space are but threshold to even better. Wake up tomorrow refreshed, we have many changes to go through. Enjoy.
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posted by St. Jim the Composter at 2:32 PM
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