Hi All,
So its been a long time since I had anything to blog about; mostly by my choice. For a long time now I've been fighting severe anxiety and panic attacks. After untold thousands of dollars for therapy, hundreds of hours in meditation and a decision to ignore what is going on in the world around me, I think I may be getting a little bit better. I'm not saying that I have left the woods and will be standing in the bright sunlight of mental health forever, but I have made a few steps into the light. On occassion I still have the urge to retreat into my safe little cave at the top of my stairs, usually known as my office, but I can mostly fight the desire off now.
I still have numerous questions that plague my everyday life and hope that some day I can come to some answers. Maybe some of you can help me along, after all some of you probably know me better than I know myself. Do I stay in the suburbs in a big, nice new home with my 2 dogs, a cat and lots of space to roam around, a garden to play in, a big kitchen to cook in or do I move back into the city into a smaller condo, but with no hour commute, proximity to my friends and family, walking distance to most things I like to do and more time to pursue reading and meditation? I don't know. Living in Dallas how do I combat the constant bombardment to be cosmetically perfect, drive the perfect car, have the perfect clothing, etc? I don't know. Spiritually I no longer know how to move forward. I know that meditation is of great help to me, the ritual of Tibetan Buddhism appeals to me, the truth of Vedantic Hinduism makes sense to me, the familiarity of Christianity appeals to me. I don't know how to pick a path and travel up the mountain without ending up standing at the bottom of the mountain starting up a new path every few weeks. Any ideas?
So I guess what got me off my butt and made me decide to blog was a movie Mark and I went to see on Friday, An Inconvenient Truth, if you would like to be motivated to be aware of what is going on around you while you worry about what to have for dinner I suggest you see this movie and get as many of your friends as you can to see this movie. Yes, it is a story moderated by Al Gore, but you will leave the theatre with a different perspective on this man. This movie humanizes him, shows us what he really cares about and really shows us the difference between him and other retired politicians. If this movie had been made before the election that he won, he would probably be the President of the United States now! While we as Americans try to figure out how we can consume more the earth is figuring out how to rid itself of the parasites known as humankind. No, gobal warming is not a theory. The arctic glaciers are melting at a huge rate, great glacial plates in the Antartic are falling into the ocean, the glaciers of Greenland are breaking up. No, it will not take 50 - 100 years for us to have a problem. Scientists predicted that the glacier in the Antartic that melted would not break up for 50 years, it broke up and slid into the ocean last year, it is completly gone. It seems that as glaciers melt they let water seep all the way through them to the bedrock on which they rest, this lubricates the glacier and it slides into the ocean and melts. If just half the glaciers in Antartica and Greenland melt the sea will rise 40 feet. Florida will be gone, most of India will be gone, lower Manhatten will be gone, land that supports 400 million people in China will be gone. The world as we know it will not exist for us and for the generations to come! Great news, huh? So what can we do? www.climatecrisis.net Follow this link for ideas and make sure the politicians that represent you know that the survival of the Earth is more important to you than whether a couple of women adopt a baby or whether we eat French fries or freedom fries. Let them know that you are tired of spending billions of dollars fighting a war to protect our oil interests when that money could be spent coming up with alternative energy sources. Let them know that opening up the oil fields in Alaska will not make much difference because Alaska has warmed up so much that roads that used to be frozen for 250 days a year, allowing trucks to travel on them, are now frozen only 78 days per year and are impassable mud pits the rest of the time.
I need your help, if you know of places on the web or just places you can call where you can buy locally made, unpackaged, organic goods that will actually help the people that make them, let me know. I am tired of spending my money at places who care nothing for their employees, nothing for the Earth and are only looking to enrich a few shareholders who already have so much money they could never spend it. We live in a new age of robber barrons, but the don't even have the decency to build a few libraries or a music hall or two. We all have to change the way we buy and live, if we do it our leaders will start to listen to us and quit listening to the guys that take them on golfing trips to expensive resorts!
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3 comments:
I don't think the individual details of what Mr. Gore said are as important as the overall message he was trying to get across. Yes, China's environment may be a disaster which makes it all the more important for the United States to set an example for the rest of the world to follow. I think getting bogged down in the details is what has gotten us in this situation to begin with! I have already changed all my light bulbs to compact flourescent, maybe that will cancel out one polluting Chinese car, every little bit helps.
Yup, this SUV-driver is feeling sufficiently guilty. But that's pretty much an ongoing thing with me.
OK, just checked out the website, and really appreciated all the tips for "greener" living. Some things were common sense, but some things I hadn't thought about. I'll put that link on my website, and promote it. The only place in Arkansas that the movie will be showing is at Market Street Cinema in Little Rock, and it won't be there until June 30, but I'll make sure to get the word out and at least take my family.
There are some "green" things I can't do (can't line-dry laundry because of pollen), some I can (unplugging things, changing at least some standard light bulbs, eating less meat), and some I can compromise on (while we can't give up our admittedly gas-guzzling but neccessary working farm vehicles, we CAN ride-share more often and be more vigilant about maintenance).
And then there are some things that are a quandary: Say, buying organic produce. I do that occasionally, but I must drive my polluting vehicle 60 miles round-trip to do so. Ditto buying from farmer's markets. Produce is a real mess for our family. We DO nuy a lot frozen, and that is because we've learned that it is typically less chemically treated than the "fresh" produce which has been travelling the country for up to two weeks...arrggh.
Weltschmerz. That's where I've been. I'd always just defined that term by the literal translation, "world pain," but if you look it up you find that it has more to do with a depressed sort of apathy that comes about due to the overwhelming nature of the problems of the world.
Tell me, Dave, why did you and I not join the Peace Corps when we were younger? I wonder from time to time. I sure wasted a lot of years as an irresponsible passenger on this planet.
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