Seize the Moment!

Until we redefine prosperity, consumption will continue to drive us down a destructive path (from Joe Tegerdine).

People are going to fly to vacation spots to sit in the sun to get a tan, a bit annoyed when all the smoke blocks the sun and they have to move hotels again because of encroaching fires. This is our current level of obliviousness. And there are some who might read that and think, "That's not me because I hate sitting in the sun," as if it's somehow better to fly somewhere to go to museums or to get drunk next to Dylan Thomas's bar stool or visit Graceland or Jim Morrison's grave, 

We'll kill our children's future to take a selfie with a tombstone. 

In Barcelona, where it hasn't rained for three years, tourists use over three times as much water as residents. We stop giving a shit about our impact on others when we're on vacation. We have propagated the illusion that being on vacation means not having to care about anything! In that article the tourism industry points its finger at agriculture as the real problem with water usage, and a debate ensues that completely neglects the most salient point: we need food. I know tourism helps the economy, but we're nearing the point where money will matter less as we become more and more like all the other mammals on the planet doing whatever we can to find food and water. Before we get there, while we still have our heads, can we at least agree that growing food is more of a priority than meeting a quota of hotel guests?

No amount of solar panels and electric cars will help us if we can't reign in our quest to have and do all the things we've ever considered. We need to dump out the bucket list and conserve like there's no tomorrow, or there really won't be a tomorrow. 

Leon Simons posted yesterday, 

"As Americans put a lot of trust in rodents. This one predicts a doubling in the rate of global warming!"

Maybe the trouble is that the only way to actively help the situation is to reduce how much we've been harming the ecosystems, and part of that means acknowledging how much harm we've done already. We suck en masse! 

And the much bigger trouble with reducing harm is that we were born and raised in a system that trained us to expect to get what we want as fast as possible and as "affordably" as possible, and to ignore the chain of events that lead to this level of "efficiency." It means clearcutting to get more lumber and paper and land for crops to feed cattle because we'd rather have steak than salad. It means strip mining to get more minerals for faster computers and for AI to write our essays and poems. It means accepting that some human beings are working without breaks or even time to chat with colleagues at a job that doesn't pay them enough to afford rent and food because we want that Amazon package today. 

There was a brief minimalist, slow food intervention a while back, but it didn't stand a chance against the capitalist machine that promotes profits over people. 

How to redefine prosperity? This conversation is aimed strictly at the over-consumers who have their needs met (food and basic shelter), but can't stop wanting more and, worse, insist that other people should want more too: you haven't lived until you've seen xyz up close in person. For them alone - for us - instead of seizing the day and filling it with events and things so we can look back and have some proof that we lived, seize the moment. This moment. And this one. And this. Things and events are all just distractions from being present. Get back to right now - even if you're reading this blog at work - and notice where you are and what's around you and how much you're a part of it all. Everything you could ever want or be, you already have or are. Right?!? We might consider what we're trying to say about ourselves, and to whom, when we scramble to post pics of the things we've just seen or bought. And how much have we just been sucked into the machine that perpetuates this consumerist message endlessly. 

It helps me to live in this place at this time of slow destruction to be a bit more aware of the ground beneath my feet and the water dripping from the eaves and the blue jay on my front porch. 

That's after I rage post here, of course. Baby steps.