I have a friend. I’ll call her Joanna. We were both teachers and we enjoy playing tennis together. I like Joanna. But we’re at that level of friendship, certainly above acquaintance, but below that steady interflow of concern and fun that you have with a good friend. When I send Joanna a link to an article in Medium in a text, she likes my text without commenting on the content. She thanks me for all I do for the environment.
When I started writing on Medium, I texted the link to the articles I wrote to all my phone contacts, more or less. I included my conservative cousin who I now know thinks ‘Nuclear all the way’ (I don’t send them to him anymore).
I texted the links to former teaching colleagues and ‘old’ high school and college friends.
I included folks I knew would be interested.
For those who were questionably open to thinking about the dangerous predicament we’re in I thought, why not send ‘Call Me Cassandra, Cassandra of Climate Change’ to them? The worst they can do is not read it. No harm done.
Now that I have a few more followers, folks getting email notices from Medium directly, and many friends that respond to my stories in texts, emails, and in person, rather than commenting on Medium, I send out the story links less frequently. For my “I’ll Be Caroling for Christmas” story, I was home, with time on my hands and it became, with a photo of some of us singing, my version of a Christmas card.
However, when a friend that I’ve sent the link to ‘likes’ it, I wonder, did they read it?
I think they didn’t.
When my friend Amy started singing, “Have Yourself a Capitalist Christmas” to the tune of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas during a phone conversation, I know she read my story. When Jules said, I’d love to join you next year, I know they’re feeling the call. When Ron commented on Facebook, ‘I’m so inspired by your work,’ I know he means it because he joined my All We Can Save book circle and he’s doing climate action himself now, in ways that work for him.
But if someone, like Joanna, simply says thanks for all you do, and then continues to go on with their business-as-usual behavior, I am frustrated by their show of ‘support.’
I can’t do this alone.
Are friends implying that I alone am enough to solve the eco-trauma that we’re perpetuating, as they snorkel in Hawaiian waters? Or collect shells on a beach in Portugal? This is entitlement.
But it’s okay. Andrea has it covered.
Sure, I know Joanna works hard. I know she doesn’t use pesticides and she recycles, but at this point, with 8 years until 2030, as wildfires rage around the world, as droughts ravage and tornadoes wreck towns, that’s not enough. As ocean dead zones grow and insects disappear, it’s not enough to be a green consumer. As fossil fuel lobbyists continue to ‘persuade’ and Republicans (should I include Joe Manchin?) continue to obstruct, I don’t think I can do this alone!
My cousin Elynor described reading one of my essays as having a glass of cold water thrown in her face. It’s a little unpleasant, but a wake-up call. I appreciate that comment!
Something is very wrong with life on this planet. Our frustration is evidence of that. Violence is proof of that. People thinking more police will solve the crime and addiction problem is proof of that. Why aren’t we asking ourselves why we are experiencing so much poverty and how we can use the resources at hand to solve it? Walk into a supermarket and see abundance. Walk in the street and see a homeless encampment.
We all need, like a fish acknowledging it swims in water, to see the treadmill we are on and say, no, this is not the reality I want to be a part of.
If you are wealthy, acknowledge that you probably did not simply ‘work harder’ than another less fortunate person. We need to own that all is not well with the world. More police will not solve the crime problem. Ranting about the mentally ill will not solve the homeless problem. Corporate profits are up, up, up. Our system is broken.
We need to change the story. We need to reunite, “the long-sundered threads of spirituality and activism…in a reunion of humanity and nature, self and other, work and play, discipline and desire, matter and spirit, man and woman, money and gift.” To quote Charles Eisenstein in The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible.
So rather than thanking me for all I do, thank me by reading a book or article I recommend.
Thank me by participating in one of my All We Can Save book circle discussions.
Thank me by joining a climate activist group that fits you. I’ll help you find one.
Thank me by realizing that whatever issue you care about has a place in the big picture and that the big picture is the world telling us that we are in crisis.
If you love dogs, then ask yourself why are we obsessed with them? Why do we need them for our mental health? Is our focus on them distracting us from all the other animals on earth? (I love dogs, by the way.)
If you love to travel, please think about the fossil fuel emissions your travels entail. Think of how we are programmed to work hard so we can earn money to go somewhere else. Think of how the beautiful travel section in the newspaper creates a desire for peace and happiness on a beach somewhere other than here or drinking ‘free’ drinks and living it up on a cruise ship.
If you love the outdoors, help bring nature into where you live. Plant native plants, join a forest restoration project. Don’t be like the boy in Shel Silverstein’s Giving Tree. Give back.
Thank me by looking at yourself and questioning ‘How Much is Enough?”
We need to network. We need to learn from each other. Your participation in this process is all the “thanks” I need.
I hear a lot of talk about hope these days. The kind of hope I like to talk about is active hope. This hope entails opening one’s eyes to the story we are living in and realizing we don’t want to live in this story. There are other, better stories to be part of.
The only kind of hope I can give is the active hope I create with others.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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