Tomorrow

What's wrong with the world today is that we don't care about the world tomorrow.

If we cared about the world of tomorrow, we would stop doing what looks good and feels good and start doing what actually is good.

If you care about the environment of tomorrow, stop mandating green technology until it actually works. You'll save more birds from wind energy, more freshwater systems from burnt-out solar grid batteries, and more people from exploding electric cars. Find the use in every mundane thing you would otherwise throw away, and use it when/if you can. Grow a garden- not just food, but something that makes you happy. Turn off the lights and the water and the AC when you don't need them.

If you care about the people of tomorrow, stop paying for entitlement programs and spending them into financial crises. You'll save them the headaches and high blood pressure and teach them to take care of themselves when the world is bankrupt.

If you care about the society of tomorrow, act. Serve at a soup kitchen or a food drive. Smile at someone who looks like they need it. Start a business and bring jobs to the local economy. Start a nonprofit and invite volunteers wherever they're needed. Donate a little more than just your money or your possessions. Join a club and be part of a community. Learn something new- and then pass it on. Be genuine. Be kind. Put some effort into making the world a better place. Write if you can, talk when you can, think as you must, and then DO something. All of the pretty words and thoughts in the world are still just thoughts and words until you act on them.

Even if you only care about your ownself of tomorrow, start doing your own work! Stop being jealous of the people who have it better than you. Ask them HOW they became so successful and then do what they did. Who knows? Maybe along the way you'll become as helpful to other people as other successful people were to you. Maybe by the time tomorrow finally rolls around, you'll care about more than just yourself.

To This Day

What's wrong with the world today is that people don't care about the truth.

A good example started in the 1940's and continues to this very day. Overuse of DDT was questioned and triple-checked and that was fine until the lie was told, until someone used the plight of of our precious national bird as the step up they needed to become a Force in our politics, one which rose with the downfall of DDT and has not itself fallen since.

Environmentalists tell the lie even to this day. Most of them don't believe it's a lie, I think. I think they took a popular truth at its word because it had been repeated so many times over so many years by so many people that it must be true, that so many people could not be wrong, that no one would demonize something unless the threat was much worse than its absence, which allows the deaths of so many souls in places they would never see.

Did you know that people in poor countries die because rich countries like the United States of America give food and water and shelter but refuse to use DDT? Thousands of people die every day from malaria, just one of the many deadly diseases carried by mosquitoes. Did you know that we don't have to drench the air in chemical pesticide to save lives beyond our borders? A little dusted onto the walls of each home would do the trick. A little painted on each doorframe and the shadow of death would pass over the houses of families and millions of faces we have never even seen.

Why not? Because a few people repeated some popular beliefs based on contrived statistics? Because the people that parroted them never questioned the facts?

We need to step outside of our comfort zones. Be curious. Ask the obvious, and then question the obvious answer (What really reduced the eagle population to a handful?). Be a little more critical (Who or what could be hurt out of the people and things I have never even considered?). Define what you believe, and question the validity of your own beliefs (When does the balance of importance between humans and wildlife tip the other way?). Question your sources (Is this group ardently pro/anti environmentalist, and does that change their answers?). Ask real people real questions ("How does this benefit you?"). Consider some motives (Why would someone fight so hard for something that kills so many human beings?).

To this day a lie persists where truths might have prevailed, and no one cares. Maybe the environmentalists would have been right, but we'll never know because to this day their descendants perpetuate and protect a lie.

You can either assume that truth is subjective or that it doesn't matter and wonder at the inevitable consequences of your actions, or assume that truth is real and that it matters, and meet them as they come.



“If the environmentalists win on DDT, they will achieve a level of authority they have never had before. In a sense, much more is at stake than DDT.”
    - as quoted in the Seattle Times by Charles Wurster, a senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund

Title shamelessly pilfered from the To This Day project, which confronts a bigger issue that kills arguably less people but cripples infinitely more.
    -http://tothisdayproject.com/

Writing to Change the World: We All Have Stories to Tell

If you read everything you had ever written, would you find yourself reading a story in between the lines? Probably not, but you might start to see patterns in your word choices and topics. Maybe you would see some phrases picked up from your mother or father, or find yourself asking your readers the same questions in different words. Who we are changes how we write, and chapter two of Writing to Change the World emphasizes this difference. We aren't just robots, doomed to repitition in acting exactly like all of the other automatons around us, but individuals with differing experiences and emotions and choices, each with our own flaws that make our writings unique.

Have you written outside of this class? Do you have a journal or a blog, a fictional tale that you've made in your own time? I think that nothing says more about us than our labors of love, the things on which we spend our extra time. I don't think this is restricted to writing, but I do think that we can learn more about ourselves when our observations can already be described in words. Maybe it's time to look back on the things you've made, the things you've written, the things you've done, and examine them. Maybe it's time for me to read through the fiction I've written over the years, to find the patterns and clues and to dig a little deeper once I have. 

"We all have stories to tell,"(40) writes Pipher. We may not know exactly what those stories mean for us until we stop experiencing them for a moment and just read.

The Threat of Apathy

When trying to think of what was good or bad in the world this week, I drew blanks at every turn. I hadn't heard of any problems from my friends or family. The news didn't interest me. Politics was the same-old same-old. Other peoples' problems were theirs, not mine. Every disappointment I had was either something I could make go away, or something I hadn't worked hard enough for.

It was all very self-centered, really.

I think that there is a danger in apathy. By definition, people come to believe that apathy happens when we don't care about anything. And there are truly apathetic people who care for nothing, politics or people or themselves - and these people waste away without others to care in their stead. In practice, however, apathy is usually just another kind of selfishness. I'm sure that even people who described themselves as apathetic would have complaints if, say, their lives were made more difficult, or were in danger, or if the person in question were unable to do what they personally wanted to do. It's when we look at others that the caring ends and apathy begins.

People these days sink so far into themselves and their own obligations and personal lives that the rest of the world may as well not exist. Maybe we're too busy. It's hard to pay attention to anything outside ourselves when we have a million other tasks to finish. Maybe we're afraid of putting our time, our emotions, our lives on the line for the sake of other people and their work.

But this is a problem. As human beings, we are creatures of community. We are like many islands, one that grew food, another that build great structures, another that created beautiful things, and so on, and all of which shared their gifts with the others. As we share our skills, our lessons learned and our raw potential, we build each other up. We grow in strength and ability and spirit when we are around people who are different from ourselves, who are not ourselves.

When we stop caring about others, we distance ourselves from them. We lose our bonds, our supports, and become islands of stagnating personality, untapped and unchanging and unnecessary.

Therein lies the threat of apathy.

Writing to Change the World: Be Bold; Be Honest

Chapter six of Mary Pipher's Writing to Change the World reads like a lesson in business, career transition, leadership, or anything where the doing, rather than the trying, is key to success. Pipher considers the values of persistence and of beginning in the first place, of clarity and honesty, of fighting pressure and anxiety in ourselves and of seeking support from the people around us.

"Be Bold. Be Honest,"(75) writes Pipher, and it applies to the entire chapter. Writing is active, not passive, and gains more from being bold and standing out than from passivity, which lets it blend into the background noise of every other half-uttered opinion. Mary explains how, “we learned to write cautiously,”(75) afraid to give our own opinions, our own words. She tells of how we struggle against apathy, anxiety, and everything that results when we are not bold. She says we worry about being wrong, about giving an incorrect point of view, about things that wouldn't matter so much if we would just be honest with ourselves and others.

Believing in oneself, in this chapter, becomes the root of good writing. Without confidence, how can we share our experiences, our beliefs? When we doubt ourselves, doesn't that reflect in our writing as well? If we become stronger, if we let others strengthen us, would more of these beliefs be shared? Would we become closer and understand more?