I’m trying to remember what the world was like before we were inundated with the news from sunup to sundown through social media. I remember plenty of news worthy events, and my family had no problem with our constant media diet of Saved By the Bell alternating with Unsolved Mysteries and Rescue 911. I knew that wars happened, children were kidnapped, and people were murdered. I vaguely kept up with the OJ Simpson trial. I remember coverage of Princess Diana, none more than her tragic and untimely death caused by the same irresponsible media that hounded her to her literal end.
I won’t lie to myself and say that life was more peaceful then. There were other problems to manage. But I hate that I wake up every day to news of a world where people are inflicting pain rather than making the most of the time we have on this Earth.
Always an Elon, Never a Bruce
Genocide in multiple countries. Hate crimes rising. My country, an absolute shitshow running unchecked despite a governmental system put in place for the sole purpose of keeping power in check. Billionaires doing dumb things instead of trying to save the world. Have they never heard of Bruce Wayne?
I did get a little chuckle at the thought of Elon Musk putting on a mask and suit to attempt to fight crime. I’d pay to see that! But frankly, Batman was never the strong guy, never the one with supernatural powers. He just had a crazy amount of money and used it to create gadgets to do what strength or magic powers would do otherwise. Nothing is stopping Musk or Bezos or any of the other billionaire bozos from doing the same.
I should disclose here that I am not a religious person. I used to be before I asked the questions that led me here. I don’t believe in heaven, and if hell exists, it’s here now. No imaginary hellfire could ever be worse than what some people experience in this lifetime. Child abuse. Starvation. Needless pain.
I don’t have this fantasy that a paradise awaits, but sometimes, I can see how it would be nice to believe in that. To think that there is something else when this is all ever. To hold on to that idea through the bad days.
I think some people cling to the idea of heaven so much that they discount the impact their lives have right here. They are living for their deaths, and they might not make the same choices they would if they thought that this life was all we’ve got. I’m not sure if thinking that would make them make better choices or worse ones, but I do think that too many people cling to religion while acting abominably toward other living beings.
Hell is a Place on Earth (It Doesn’t Have to Be)
For me, I see life as a cycle. One day, I’ll become another nutrient that feeds an Earth that my fellow human beings are determined to take out with them. I don’t live for the idea of paradise later, but I do live for the idea that every single person on Earth has a responsibility to do what they can to make life better right now.
Instead, people chase power, money, fame, or love. They cling to ideas that don’t matter, and yes, I included love there because a love that has to be chased down isn’t necessarily one worth holding onto in the long run. I do know that hurt people hurt people. I was a therapist at one time after all. But I also know that a lot of hurt people become the ones determined to protect others. We make a lot of allowances for the hurt people causing harm and don’t recognize nearly enough all those who use their pain to make the world a little bit better.
But not everyone making the world harder fits into the category of hurt people hurting people. A lot of them are just so wrapped up in their own entitlement and convenience that the very idea of accommodating anyone or anything else is abhorrent to them. They are the “me first” human beings that are always going to cut line and disregard the consequences.
There were an awful lot of protests about masks during COVID, and yet the same people who cried about wearing one are completely fine if domestic hate groups like ICE and the KKK walk around with their faces covered for no justifiable reason at all. I’d like to think that they cover them out of shame, but I know it’s just a desire for anonymity lest their hateful personal lives accidentally derail their relationships and careers.
The Permission Slip “Good” People Write Themselves
What makes me sad is the group of people that are far less extreme than the ones I described before. They are the people trying to live good lives. The thing is, they make a lot of exceptions.
They shop on Amazon because of convenience, even if they know the company is unethical at best. They use artificial intelligence, even as they are told repeatedly of both the human and environmental cost of their use. They spray pesticides in the garden because they’ve found a way to justify it, and no amount of trying to convince them that tiny lives matter, too, or that poison sprayed into the environment is a terrible idea will change what they do.
They’ve written themselves a permission slip to do it anyway, and then go about their lives still feeling pretty good about themselves.
They don’t think too hard about the consequences of their actions. If they did, then they might feel a need to put the work into changing how they instinctively live. It’s much easier to choose intentional ignorance than to do the research and make the changes necessary to live a more ethically-aligned life.
I had an argument with a friend about this very issue. We’re both passionate, and we were able to have this disagreement respectfully. I was asking questions around the ethics of meat farming, and one answer that I’ve never found a satisfactory answer to is this: If an animal can live a certain length of time and still be processed for meat, why don’t farmers let them?
I’m not talking about factory farms. Those are trash. I’m talking about the everyday farmer. If an animal could live longer, what’s the rationale for not allowing it?
Her argument begins with money. Farmers are investing a lot into the animal and need to be able to make the money to sustain that investment. The thing is, a lot of farmers are buying fertilizer and feed they wouldn’t necessarily need at all if they switched to regenerative farming methods. With that money saved, couldn’t they let them live longer?
She disagreed. There’s a demand for meat. If everyone slowed down production, there would be a shortage and prices would go up. My response to that was to acknowledge the truth of it but to point out that the culture dictates our norms. If Americans didn’t strongly feel they had to have meat with every single meal, the demand would lessen. If serving sizes decreased, demand would lessen. Shouldn’t we work to change a culture that science has shown is putting a strain on environmental resources? Couldn’t slowing down production be paced along with a cultural shift toward eating more fresh produce?
Of course, I say that knowing that there’s a problem with produce right now. But I grow my own and haven’t had to be worried that a salad is going to give me explosive diarrhea and send me to the emergency department. There’s something to be said for growing an organic garden and having the confidence our food is safe to consume.
The Ethics of Freedom and Free Will
We went back and forth on the issue. She doesn’t fundamentally disagree with me, but her argument goes back to people having the freedom to do what they want. My argument remains that just because people can doesn’t mean people should.
Case in point: Any kind of eating contest. Food contests are associated with Americana. Getting together at the country fair and shoving food in one’s face is rewarded. But in a world where people are starving, I find it deplorable and disgusting. It’s wasteful. It’s tone deaf. It’s irresponsible. It’s not cute or funny or entertaining. It’s just sad.
Yes, people can line up to see how many hot dogs they can eat or who can eat the biggest slice of pie. But just because they can, should they? It’s not healthy for them, and it’s wasteful of our resources. Should freedom give people a free pass to be willfully irresponsible? I don’t think so.
This isn’t me saying that people who participate in a local pie eating contest should get thrown in prison for it. This is me saying that we should live more intentionally and not just do things because we can. This is me saying that some things shouldn’t be seen as acceptable just because it’s been done before.
Being free doesn’t mean we abandon our responsibilities to the Earth and to each other and do whatever we want. It means that we have choices. Those choices don’t just define who we are; they define whether or not we make the world a better place to live in.
Better Off Living Well or Better Off Dead
Frankly, if I’m honest, there are people I think the world is better off without. I grew up in the South hearing to “never speak ill of the dead,” but I don’t think it’s respectful to lie about someone’s legacy. I think it’s irresponsible. We should never rewrite history just because it’s ugly.
I’ve told my friends that if I ever get murdered, I better not watch a documentary where everyone calls me sweet and talks about how I could light up a room. If no one mentions my incredible sense of humor, I will be pissed and will haunt them for it. Don’t tell them I was such a nice person. Tell them I could make you laugh until your ribs hurt from it. Tell them I was weird but liked being weird. Tell them I talked too much and too fast and interrupted too, often but I could keep you laughing through tough situations and always told the truth, even when it was hard.
Obviously, I watch too much true crime, but the point is this: We don’t have to lie about the dead any more than we have to lie about the living. It’s telling when people celebrate a death. It makes me think of A Christmas Carol when Scrooge overhears people talking cruelly about him after he’s died. The point of the scene isn’t that people shouldn’t talk bad about someone who lived a terrible life; the entire point is that he was finally able to see the legacy he was leaving behind. He wasn’t remembered fondly or missed. People were positively giddy he’d dropped dead and rid the world of one more cruel billionaire. It’s part of the impetus for changing his life.
I don’t have any spirits to send after the current banes of our collective existence, but I sometimes wonder if they would even care if they knew. Some of them are so invested in being remembered that they don’t care if they’re remembered poorly. I guess that’s one way to achieve immortality, but it’s not one a decent person would choose.
The World News: It’s Ruining My Life
I wake up and think too much about the world and what’s happening in it. How can I not when genocide is televised and ICE has murdered yet another law-abiding citizen on the street with nary an outcry? The Supreme Court is a supreme embarrassment, and our President will remain a source of shame for this country … well, forever.
It’s not just my country either, although we’re complicit in many world events. The fact that genocide exists and people know about it and do nothing boggles the mind. Not just Palestine. The Congo. All around the world, people are being erased because we don’t collectively care enough. And because we keep letting men run the world straight into the ground. Before I have to answer to cries of misandry, please note that until women have been in charge and do the same, I’m simply stating the facts as they are right now.
I like to joke about my “dumb b*tch era.” It doesn’t sound kind, but my sense of humor can run dark (Thanks, Trauma!). When I reference it, I’m usually talking about a past relationship where I ignored red flags in favor of chasing chemistry and ended up worse off for it. Before cries of internalized misogyny result, I’d like to say that I refer to this in an entirely gender neutral way. Anyone can have this era (and likely everyone has at some point in time). I like to say that America is in her “dumb b*tch era,” too, and I dearly hope she will learn and grow into something resembling a great country.
Maybe the whole world is in this era, and it’s possible that all I’m doing is screaming into the proverbial void. But isn’t it better to rage against all that’s wrong rather than going along to get along? Isn’t it better that some people are still trying to do good, to learn more, and to do better?
That’s the crux of it. I am not living a perfectly ethical life, but I am always learning. I am trying. I have made changes, and I’m sure I’ll make more. I’m not striving for perfection, just progress.
And I’m inviting other people to join me. I know it’s annoying when I preach the dangers of AI, but my life has become so much harder because of all the income I’ve lost because people would rather use poorly written plagiarized artificial intelligence than to pay a working writer. Beyond my personal struggles, it’s a strain on the environment we simply can’t afford. Shouldn’t one of those things be reason enough to make some accommodations? Does the internet really need another AI generated flyer or cartoon selfie?
I know it’s aggravating to people when I talk about not tilling the soil in favor of no-dig gardening or skipping pesticides and allowing a little garden attrition. I know people are annoyed when I beg them just to leave the leaves instead of raking them up, or when I point out that composting and recycling are easy and accessible to anyone. I get it: I’m a big weirdo who cares too much.
I always have been. I always will be. I’m just going to get weirder and wilder, and I’m not going to apologize for it because I’m not sorry.
I’ll keep beating that drum, hoping you’ll join me. Hoping you’ll care enough to make one small change, no matter how simple. To make the world a little better instead of a little worse. To be a person who gives me hope when the world news just wants to dash it.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Samuel Yongbo Kwon on Unsplash
