July 7th, 1997
IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH
By Jackie Giuliano
It's so hard to do the right thing, isn't it? I mean, everything is so expensive - it
costs so much just to get by. We have to work long, hard hours just to make ends meet. And
it is so difficult to conserve. We have to drive so far to get to work and our schedules
are such that it really isn't practical to carpool. What if there was an emergency and you
needed to get home right away? And recycling - sure, it's a good idea, but sometimes you
just have to get out of the house quickly and it is really much easier to toss the can in
the garbage than to lug it out to the recycling bin.
We know we could eat better, but who has the time? Sure, we could buy less, but we need
certain tools to get our jobs and hobbies done. We have to look good for work, so the
extra outfits are necessary. And since we work hard, we should be entitled to some play
time - some nice eating out and some movies - we need to have fun.
Sound familiar?
More is way too little.
Less is just not enough.
Time is just too short.
But how much more will be enough?
When will less be best?
And when will we take the time
to be?
Just take a moment and feel - really feel - what it is like to say the words in those
opening paragraphs. Take the parts that are really familiar to you - and add some of your
own - and say them again. Taste the words. Feel the energy behind them. What to you feel?
What do you notice?
When I say those words of rationalization - and yes, I say many of them quite often - I
feel sad. I feel like I have dressed myself in a suit made of something that feels tight
and scratchy on my skin. I feel like I do when I am a few pounds overweight and I sense
every extra inch, every fold of skin with feelings of self-consciousness that are so
strong that I feel trapped inside my body.
When I say those words of disconnection, I start to wish I had a new car, all shiny and
smelling so fresh. Of course, I know that the "new car smell" is the outgassing
of the toxic polyvinylchlorides in the upholstery and dashboards and plastics shortening
my life. I start craving the safety and security of a car, the feeling of how the seat
fits around you, how even when you close the door and the air goes "whoosh" as
you are sealed in a feeling of comfort sets in.
Dear Goddess, what has become of us? How did we get so disconnected from the natural world
- and our selves and our souls? Are we just so superficial and narcissistic that we are
destined to just keep using up this planet, and ourselves, until there is nothing left?
NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Stand up for a moment. Feel how it felt to read those last few paragraphs. Parts of them
may feel familiar, to be sure, but I would wager that in all of us there is a part of our
"gut," our heart and soul, that says "no, this is not the way it should or
has to be."
Now shake those feelings off. Literally. Jump up and down, move your arms and legs, and
make sounds. Shake like you had something on your skin that you wanted to get off. You
don't have to carry around anything you don't want to. Ever.
I truly believe that we all know in our hearts what is "right." Once you start
reconnecting with your body and the natural world, your "gut feelings" get truer
and truer, easier to listen to.
And you know, it really doesn't take all that much to do the "right" thing.
First, however, you must acknowledge why you have been so disconnected. Each of us will
have many personal reasons, but all of us in the West share a cultural legacy that is
partially responsible for the way we behave today.
Our country and our way of life was founded on consuming. Not just consuming what we need,
but consuming in a grand way, a way that shows the rest of the world that America is
"strong." In the era following the second World War, our leaders choose a path
toward healing that was based on extensive and excessive consumerism. The frugality
practiced during the war was over - no need to conserve, no need to tighten our belts any
more. We WON after all.
How many cars you had and how much meat you could put on the table was a measure of your
success and health. "Convenience" was the goal. This mindset was not only an
attempt to make people feel better, but it was a way to get U.S. business back on its feet
by making mass consumerism a way of life, a necessity. This was a way that was chosen to
show the world we were strong.
The discovery of antibiotics around that time made much of this possible. Now you could do
things like raise thousands of animals in close, confined quarters and treat their
illnesses. Billions of pounds of beef could be made available.
Many of you reading this grew up in those times. You remember the brainwashing - the
television commercials with doctors speaking the benefits of smoking, magazine ads and
articles speaking of the importance of being a two-car family, and the push coming from
every direction to buy - to support America. Of course, we can successfully argue that
very little has changed. See the Mercedes billboard that proclaims "Politically
Incorrect - and Worth It."
And we must remember another vital awareness that arose in the post-war era: that the U.S.
had unleashed a power that could literally destroy millions of people with a flash of
light - the atomic bomb.
And we used it twice - the second time in Nagasaki was just for show and for needed bomb
blast data. Japan had already capitulated after Hiroshima. The second atomic bomb was an
obscene, greedy abomination for which the leaders at the time can never be forgiven.
For the first time in human history, people could no longer assume that their children and
their grandchildren would breath the same air or walk the same land as they do. For the
first time in human history, people could envision a blasted, bombed out wasteland of a
world. Joanna Macy says that this awareness may be the pivotal psychological reality of
our time, causing stress and disconnection on a deep level.
For those of us who were too young to be conscious of the complexities of the world at the
time, we must realize that our parents grew up in that era of indoctrination. Garrison
Keillor, a wonderful humorist and creator of the "Prairie Home Companion" radio
shows, reminded us in a radio monologue a few years ago, that it is a fallacy to feel that
life was "simpler" when we were young. Actually, it was no simpler than today -
in fact, it was probably way more complex in many ways. What is true is that it was
simpler FOR US at the time, largely because of the efforts of our parents who were
struggling in that world and protecting us to the best of their abilities.
The mindsets and assumptions we carry that affect the way we live our lives, that keep our
choices confused and conflicting, were born in an era long ago. We either grew up or were
raised by people who grew up in an era when values were based on how much of the natural
world you could consume and how many resources you could reach and use. Isolation and
disconnection from the natural world was a necessity for this mindset to be possible.
I was reminded during the last meeting of an environmental studies class last week that we
can break through these assumptions and artificially crafted perceptions. This was a small
class - only five people - who are part of an accelerated bachelors degree program with
the University of Phoenix. Their classes are only five weeks long, during which they earn
three units of credit! This translates to over 100 hours of required work in a time frame
that other programs take 10 weeks to four months to complete.
The people in this class have been in the business world since high school. They are all
working full-time and most have families. The artificially created assumptions and values
of our Western culture are ingrained in these people. One of them smokes and told us her
whole family did, and she felt fine. She is a bill collector for a local major hospital.
Another works for the armed forces in the travel department for their outer space weapons
program. She also has a second job at a major department store. None of them has paid much
attention in their lives to their place in the natural world.
Yet after only five weeks of meeting once a week, reading a few hundred pages of text, and
writing a paper about a subject of their choice, they were all moved to notice their
actions and acknowledge their responsibility in this world a little bit more.
One student, when asked to sum up his learning over the past five weeks, said he was
particularly affected by one of my "Healing Our World" articles (one of their
assignments was to visit Envirolink and read this stuff!). He is involved with a community
group that has built a number of affordable housing projects around town. He said that
until he read my piece on community (see the Archive) he had thought that the apartments
they were building were "communities." He realized, however, that they weren't.
He realized that something was missing. He was profoundly affected. His awakening had
begun.
Another woman, after exploring the issues involved in our air pollution problems,
concluded that we know exactly how to repair our atmosphere, but that doing so would
involve major changes in the way we live. Her awakening had begun.
Another student ended his paper on the ozone layer with a quote from T.S. Eliot:
We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
His awakening had begun.
All of us have the power to begin our awakening. For these students, they were motivated
to begin because of a choice to return to school. For others, this awakening doesn't have
to take place in a classroom. It can begin in your car or your home or just in yourself.
And as with so many things, awakening begins with noticing that you need to wake up,
pausing from the frenetic pace of your lives and looking - really looking - around you as
you ask yourself some crucial questions. How do I want to live, what values do I want to
have, what do I want to take a stand for, and what mark do I want to leave on this Earth
during my stay here?
It can be done. We all have the power to do it. It doesn't take much.
Standing up on lifted, folded rock
looking out and down -
The creek falls to a far valley
hills beyond that
facing, half-forested, dry
clear sky
strong wind in the
stiff glittering needle clusters
of the pine - their brown
round trunk bodies
straight, still,
rustling trembling limbs and twigs
listen.
This living flowing land
is all there is, forever
We are it
it sings through us -
We could live on this Earth
without clothes or tools!
-- Gary Snyder
RESOURCES
1. Thinking about buying a new car? Check out electric cars at http://www.calstart.org/cgi-bin/catalog.cgi.
Visit the CALSTART online database of clean cars at http://www.calstart.org/services/catalog/
2. Get help beating consumerism from Adbusters at http://www.adbusters.org./main.html.
Participate in their "Buy Nothing Day" on November 29, 1997, or do it tomorrow.
3. Learn more about Hiroshima and Nagasaki at http://sv1.jca.or.jp/~yk/peace.html#hiroshima-nagasaki
4. The works of Joanna Macy can be ordered from Creabooks at http://members.aol.com/creabooks/creatura.html
5. Check out the Sarvodaya movement, based upon principles of sharing, compassion
self-sufficiency, constructive action, truthful communication, equality, development,
democracy, and community at http://home.earthlink.net/~rflyer/sarvodayausahp.html
6. Treat yourself to the work of Garrison Keillor at http://phc.mpr.org/index.html
7. Explore mindfulness through the work of Thich Nhat Hahn at http://www.parallax.org/scripts/parallax/index.pl?funct=author&query=Nhat+Ha
nh%2C+Thich&id= |
