adolescent apathies
where is the line between the thought and the action?
where is the boundary between desire and greed?
i asked my students tonight why it was that the drive to make money always goes hand in hand with the devastation of a people. why is it that wealth has become associated with the commodification of persons? why is it that throughout history there have been positions of power?
the gods of the ancient world were different from the "modern" gods. i can't help but notice again and again the examples of how there became a wider and wider separation between people and the earth. we, as superior beings, became an entity superior to nature, as it was something conquerable, traversable, resourceful for our survival. religion complimented or catalyzed this divorce by creating a power that existed not just outside of ourselves, but outside of our reality. beyond our grasp and understanding, it was the only thing superior to US. so we used this egocentric view as an excuse for a lot of our behavior.
i like the analogy from brian swim (sp?) of how we are like teenagers in the universe. our planet, in the grand scheme of things, is not that old. our species has not been in existence very long compared to some of the other planetary bodies dangling throughout the multiverse, let alone as long as the Earth has been alive. of course we haven't figured it out. and i do worry that we'll simply speed up our destruction on just about every level. it's hard not to agree sometimes with the attitude that we are like a plague on the planet, a parasite slowly killing the host. but i find comfort in the individuals i've met who are truly working toward living in a better world, because if they exist, there must be more of them, and the numbers add up against the much smaller population of people who have all the wealth in the world.
for things to change, enough people have to stand up together. but there are so many of us with so many different variations of the same problems that we are distracted by the everyday battles. and as we get older, we subscribe to routines that resolve the civil unrest lying dormant in the back of our minds. we subscribe to ways of living and perceiving that provide comfort.
and look where it's gotten us. we use pills, violence, selfishness to cope with the state of things. we repeatedly fail to address the real core of a problem. we rely on conventions of happiness that perpetuate problems, albeit sometimes discreetly. we become stagnant with traditions that we never questioned because it was an offense to where we came from, like children who never came to understand that their parents were just as fallible, just as imperfect and confused as we, we glorify the parts of the past that allow us to feel we've no room for improvement. when we should understand the very nature of being responsible for the birth of a new life is the chance to provide for them a reality better than what is known.
i reached a point when i became aware that i hadn't the stomach for politics. it was too corrupt. it was too dangerous. it was a charade to make people think democracy had a chance in a world run by money. i'd hear stories from other people about how they could never be in politics because there was too much dirt on them. and i didn't see how that could matter when they seemed to find dirt on everyone anyway. some people still believe that to enact social change, one has to get involved with politics, so i felt compelled to establish my own way of contributing to change. wise folks said, after all, to be the change you wish to see. to me that meant living my life in the way that i wished all people could. this was not a lavish life. this was a life in which the basic necessities were met.
but when you have a population that becomes excessive, in its size and demand, then the world struggles to keep up, the planet struggles to keep supporting our habits. i think it's funny how hunters will quickly defend their sport by discussing how the population of deer and turkey must be maintained, but how many would defend the necessity of abortion? of doing a little maintenance on our own human population? we condemn china for their traditions of leaving baby girls to die, for limiting the reproductive rights of its people, but their country could not continue to survive reproducing at a higher rate with a longer life expectancy. i'm not saying i agree with all of china's historical decisions, but i don't think that preventing the population from expanding beyond a point was necessarily a bad idea.
why is it that all of us are expected to perpetuate the species? why is it that so many people feel compelled to procreate? surely we've gotten past the biological urges--because we understand that they exist. surely our logic tells us that not everyone is responsible for perpetuating the species. surely there are enough children living without parents who could use a home for those dead-set on becoming parents. but, some would argue, who has the right to determine who is "meant" to be a parent and who is not? i find it hard to believe that there can't be a small representative group responsible for drafting a piece of legislature that then receives a vote. then again, i suppose not everyone is going to the polls these days to participate in the decisions made.
(and see, i've come back to politics)
so i came to decide that i was alright being part of the village that helped to raise the child. i came to appreciate the increasing number of people i came to interact with in all sorts of contexts, through all sorts of phases in my life. i found that it was practical, for me, to teach by example, to be the change i wished to see by focusing on how i could interact better with my community. by continuing to explore the ways in which i could express myself. by learning more about myself as well as the people around me. by refusing to let that which divides us defeat us. by maintaining faith that we are capable of leaving this world better than we found it.
where is the boundary between desire and greed?
i asked my students tonight why it was that the drive to make money always goes hand in hand with the devastation of a people. why is it that wealth has become associated with the commodification of persons? why is it that throughout history there have been positions of power?
the gods of the ancient world were different from the "modern" gods. i can't help but notice again and again the examples of how there became a wider and wider separation between people and the earth. we, as superior beings, became an entity superior to nature, as it was something conquerable, traversable, resourceful for our survival. religion complimented or catalyzed this divorce by creating a power that existed not just outside of ourselves, but outside of our reality. beyond our grasp and understanding, it was the only thing superior to US. so we used this egocentric view as an excuse for a lot of our behavior.
i like the analogy from brian swim (sp?) of how we are like teenagers in the universe. our planet, in the grand scheme of things, is not that old. our species has not been in existence very long compared to some of the other planetary bodies dangling throughout the multiverse, let alone as long as the Earth has been alive. of course we haven't figured it out. and i do worry that we'll simply speed up our destruction on just about every level. it's hard not to agree sometimes with the attitude that we are like a plague on the planet, a parasite slowly killing the host. but i find comfort in the individuals i've met who are truly working toward living in a better world, because if they exist, there must be more of them, and the numbers add up against the much smaller population of people who have all the wealth in the world.
for things to change, enough people have to stand up together. but there are so many of us with so many different variations of the same problems that we are distracted by the everyday battles. and as we get older, we subscribe to routines that resolve the civil unrest lying dormant in the back of our minds. we subscribe to ways of living and perceiving that provide comfort.
and look where it's gotten us. we use pills, violence, selfishness to cope with the state of things. we repeatedly fail to address the real core of a problem. we rely on conventions of happiness that perpetuate problems, albeit sometimes discreetly. we become stagnant with traditions that we never questioned because it was an offense to where we came from, like children who never came to understand that their parents were just as fallible, just as imperfect and confused as we, we glorify the parts of the past that allow us to feel we've no room for improvement. when we should understand the very nature of being responsible for the birth of a new life is the chance to provide for them a reality better than what is known.
i reached a point when i became aware that i hadn't the stomach for politics. it was too corrupt. it was too dangerous. it was a charade to make people think democracy had a chance in a world run by money. i'd hear stories from other people about how they could never be in politics because there was too much dirt on them. and i didn't see how that could matter when they seemed to find dirt on everyone anyway. some people still believe that to enact social change, one has to get involved with politics, so i felt compelled to establish my own way of contributing to change. wise folks said, after all, to be the change you wish to see. to me that meant living my life in the way that i wished all people could. this was not a lavish life. this was a life in which the basic necessities were met.
but when you have a population that becomes excessive, in its size and demand, then the world struggles to keep up, the planet struggles to keep supporting our habits. i think it's funny how hunters will quickly defend their sport by discussing how the population of deer and turkey must be maintained, but how many would defend the necessity of abortion? of doing a little maintenance on our own human population? we condemn china for their traditions of leaving baby girls to die, for limiting the reproductive rights of its people, but their country could not continue to survive reproducing at a higher rate with a longer life expectancy. i'm not saying i agree with all of china's historical decisions, but i don't think that preventing the population from expanding beyond a point was necessarily a bad idea.
why is it that all of us are expected to perpetuate the species? why is it that so many people feel compelled to procreate? surely we've gotten past the biological urges--because we understand that they exist. surely our logic tells us that not everyone is responsible for perpetuating the species. surely there are enough children living without parents who could use a home for those dead-set on becoming parents. but, some would argue, who has the right to determine who is "meant" to be a parent and who is not? i find it hard to believe that there can't be a small representative group responsible for drafting a piece of legislature that then receives a vote. then again, i suppose not everyone is going to the polls these days to participate in the decisions made.
(and see, i've come back to politics)
so i came to decide that i was alright being part of the village that helped to raise the child. i came to appreciate the increasing number of people i came to interact with in all sorts of contexts, through all sorts of phases in my life. i found that it was practical, for me, to teach by example, to be the change i wished to see by focusing on how i could interact better with my community. by continuing to explore the ways in which i could express myself. by learning more about myself as well as the people around me. by refusing to let that which divides us defeat us. by maintaining faith that we are capable of leaving this world better than we found it.
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