Show up or Shut up

November 2, 2007 | Filed Under Moment of Truth, Random, Thoughts 

I’ve decided to try something new: walk it, don’t talk it. 

Those who talk do not know.
Those who know do not talk.

Show up or shut up, basically.  I look at all the stupid things that I, who professes to care about the environment, do and realize that if I’m conscious of the effect of what I’m doing and do it anyway, how can I persecute the genuinely ignorant?  It’s not possible.

I think i’m going through a “radicalization” process.  I’m getting kind of ghung ho about the environment and really looking at what I’m doing and the negative impact–potential or real–that exists because of my existence. 

Everything is plastic.  Tupperware went from being obscure to everywhere.  It’s the predecessor to the litany of plastic storage containers that have an ubiquitous presence today.  In the early 90s, people in California got duped into buying bottled water; it worked and now, stupidly, we’re all buying it.  **Here’s an idea: clean the water!** 

But that task itself is increasingly daunting as, in the late 90s, the whole country got crazy about sanitation for a hot minute and are just used to buying anti-bacterial stuff.  **It doesn’t really work since people in this country are nasty. You have to wash your hands for at least thirty seconds for effectiveness.  We made it to the 1990s without antibacterial wash.  Was it impossible for us to move forward without everyone using it then?**

The water cleaning plants weren’t designed with the idea of removing antibacterial agents from regular water…at least definitely not at the rates in which they’re being used now.  So what then? 

Furthermore, what happens to the chemicals from regular toxic household cleaning agents?  (Why toxic you ask?  Did you read the warning label that tells you to call the poison control center if it gets on your skin???)

So back to plastic…you can’t even get an approximate time on how long it takes for a flimsy plastic grocery bag to biodegrade.  Scients don’t know.  The estimates are sketchy and widely variant.  Maybe 1000 years.  Maybe 500.  Seems like you kind of need to know since everybody uses them so freely. 

The other option, the one people pat themselves on the back for, is paper.  Great.  Now we killed a tree we need for the CO₂so you could carry home your groceries and shopping goods.  Why weren’t we using canvas from the beginng?  Oh that’s right…because the people that own the forests that make the bags that the stores buy for you to take home don’t care about the environment, especially when it decreases their projected profits.  We all lose.

I care.  I think.  I say so.  But have I used a plastic bag, bought a bottled water (how many of those are thrown away everyday?), used plastic silverware, took home my food in a plastic to-go container?  Yep.  So do I care or is the idea of caring so novel in itself that nothing else is required? 

All I’m saying is too many of us think we care about something and we don’t do anything to prove that we care about it.  There’s talk about it, but where’s the “BE” about it? 

Then there’s the stuff you are about…the stuff you do DO.  Why?  Because it’s in someone else’s best interest that you do or because it’s in yours, mine, and/or everybody’s? 

Don’t be fooled by the century of self, which garnered us more things to fit into our homes, and bigger homes to put more things in because all that stuff fades, breaks, dies, goes away, tears, and degrades.  And even if it doesn’t, you do.  All that you really have are the intangible. relationships, principles, ideas, histories…histories that, for most of us, read that we are an incredibly selfish, egocentric, pompous, naive, stupid, lazy, foolish, short-sighted, and evil group of people. 

Does your good outweigh your bad?  Do the seeds and fruits of your good outnumber and outlast the seeds and fruit of your bad, intentional and inadvertent?  Do you do enough to cover the cost of your existence?  There’s an inevitable amount of “bad” you’re going to do or cause, but are you doing all that you can to ensure that you do the least harm?

All these religions people are out here fighting for..the conquer and destroy game never ends huh?  Your God says to practice love, but you see nothing wrong in amassing stashes of jewelry obtained with practices that make the ground from which they came incredibly toxic.  But you paid a “fare wage,” so your mind is at ease. You phony lovers. 

You charitable souls that donate a portion of your earnings to stop famine and adopt kids, what do you know of the economic and political structures that depend on the very things you claim to want to help and your participation in those structures? 

What tangled webs we’ve weaved!  It’s deep.  It’s complex, but if you care you’ll seek the truth and act accordingly.  Otherwise the words you say will continue to lose value because you’re either ignorant, a liar, or both.  Smarten up, shut up, and show up to present whatever you believe to be true.  Just walk the talk. 

And why are people that live like they think people ought to, people that are ghung ho about whatever they’re about, called radicals?  Because everyone else is quasi and pseudo?  Posers.

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