I was playing the Higher Thought game with some new friends recently and the first card drawn was: “Do you hold hope that the small children of today will inherit a better world than the one we have right now?”
The woman who’d drawn the card was the mother of two grown children who are now in their twenties. She laughed at the question and said, “Well, that’s easy. The answer is no.”
“Really?” said someone else. “What about your kids?”
“Well,” she said. “I love them but I think they’re fucked.”
Eschewing Onions
A day or two later I was shopping at my local Safeway supermarket, late at night. (After 10 p.m., none of my other grocery stores are open.) I needed one or two organic onions, and Safeway had them, but only in bunches packaged in plastic netting that would eventually wind up in the garbage. I didn’t mind the thought of buying multiple onions but I had a problem with the netting, because I know that plastic = oil.
Shoot! I really needed an onion or two. They’re a staple of my diet! They go on my sandwiches and in my lentil/quinoa/broccoli dinners (email me for the recipe), and their contribution is important.
So I thought to myself, Maybe just this once … such an infinitesimal drop in the toxic ocean, this little bit of plastic netting. … But no. My conscience won in this event. I did without an onion for a day or two until the next time I was at a store where they sell them loose.
I’m not saying I’m pure. On that very same Safeway visit, I broke down and bought hummus, which I do once every few months. I’d buy hummus far more often if I could find a brand that came in something other than a non-recyclable plastic container. Actually, I buy plenty of things in plastic that I can’t get any other way, but l do make a habit of minimizing my plastic consumption.
My friend Barry once suggested a little contest. We’d see who, between the two of us, could go longest without buying any plastic at all. I accepted the challenge, but he won easily. The very next day, I had to pick up a refill of my prescription eye drops, which come in a little plastic vial.
My friend didn’t last long either. Another day or so.
Dysphoria in the River
I think it was the very next day – after not buying onions at Safeway – that I visited a river cove where I like to swim on hot days. I got in the water, which always refreshes me, but I noticed an unease throughout my body. I’d even call it dysphoria. The opposite of a sense of well-being.
Before entering the water, I’d taken a few hits off a strong joint, which made me ultra-aware of my feelings, and also gave me the ability to investigate the source of my feelings. Upon “looking,” I quickly realized what was going on. It was the article I had read earlier that day from the New York Times entitled “In Game-Changing Climate Rollback, E.P.A. Aims to Kill a Bedrock Scientific Finding.”
If you click on that link but are not a Times subscriber, you’ll probably hit a paywall. Anyway, here is how the article begins:
Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Tuesday the Trump administration would revoke the scientific determination that underpins the government’s legal authority to combat climate change.
Speaking at a truck dealership in Indianapolis, Mr. Zeldin said the E.P.A. planned to rescind the 2009 declaration, known as the endangerment finding, which concluded that planet-warming greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health. The Obama and Biden administrations used that determination to set strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants and other industrial sources of pollution.
‘The proposal would, if finalized, amount to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States,’ Mr. Zeldin said. He said the proposal would also erase limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks on the nation’s roads.
Without the endangerment finding, the E.P.A. would be left with no authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate the greenhouse gas emissions that are accumulating in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.
The proposal is President Trump’s most consequential step yet to derail federal climate efforts. It marks a notable shift in the administration’s position from one that had downplayed the threat of global warming to one that essentially flatly denies the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change.“
Standing there in the river, I realized that, having read this article, it felt obscene for me to just relax, to set it aside in my mind and ignore its implications for our collective future. That background knowledge was driving my dysphoria.
“The largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.” What exactly is it about deregulation that makes these guys wet their pants? So sick. Buddhism would say that such people suffer from deep-seeded complexes of greed, fear, and delusion, and that if we understand this we can have compassion for them. But I cannot understand this. I simply cannot imagine that level of greed, fear, and delusion. It’s like these guys have all drunk Satan juice. Don’t some of them have grandchildren??
And anyway, what exactly would my compassion for these zombie people accomplish? Would I be a more effective activist in some way? I don’t know.
But you gotta go with what’s real and start with compassion for yourself, right? So with all due compassion for myself and others, I say, “Die and eat shit, Mr. Zeldin. And as for your boss, Trump, don’t even get me started.”
I guess that’s my own fear and delusion talking. And I’ll acknowledge that those particular thoughts and feelings do nothing to alleviate my dysphoria.
My Own Response to the Higher Thought Question
The way the game is played, everyone who wants to answer the current question gets a chance.
My own answer was emphatic. Yes, I said. I have hope that upcoming generations will inherit a better world. I NEED to have that hope. I can’t LIVE without that hope. And despite how grim it appears from where we are now, it is also true that all the things I DON’T know – and cannot even IMAGINE from here — add up to infinitely than what I do know. That may be a thin reed to cling to for hope, but it’s legitimate, and it’s what I got.
Upon reflection, there is a bit more than that though. My friend Shelby proposes that we might be in the midst of an “extinction burst” – a period during which things will get very, very bad for a while, as long-entrenched power structures and ways of doing things die away. This “burst” is the last furious dying gasp of those who benefit from the old ways. There will be huge damage and there will be casualties of course, but something saner will emerge from all this.
Another friend, Starr, puts it slightly differently. She believes “things will get better but first they will get really REALLY ugly.” And yet another friend, John, whose wisdom I respect quite a lot, believes that a “collective human awakening” is inevitably coming, though the precise timing is a mystery.
I hope he’s right. In the meantime, I don’t know exactly what to do, but I will stay aligned with the truth as I perceive it. I will stay coherent in my words and deeds. Perhaps it’s only a drop of a drop of a drop of a drop in the ocean, but I’ll continue to eschew plastic netting produce bags. In the grand scheme of things, that may be somewhat less impactful than the coming tide of E.P.A. emissions rules reversals, but that doesn’t make it meaningless. Every action I take either reinforces or sabotages harmony within myself and what I bring to my world. That matters.
So I’ll redouble my efforts to be consistently kind. I’ll keep showing up for protest actions. I’ll donate to Act Blue and the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition and the Portland Food Project. I’ll drive my car less and take the bus more often. I will not numb out to our collective emergency.
And I’ll hope that I’m part of something bigger than myself, an emerging consciousness or collective awakening of some sort that is actually as inevitable as it looks impossible right now. A simplistic, naïve hope perhaps, but one I hold all the same, maybe only because I need it.
Apart from anything else, these thoughts allowed me to enjoy my swim.
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