No climate change around here
If they lie about the obvious....
I am writing this in the USA in March; the season of spring when we have a blizzard one day, heat wave the next and flooding the day after that. And fire season many months early. And many months longer.
It is as if the earth itself reflects the rage and chaos of the humans on its surface.
Or perhaps we humans are as fickle and disruptive as the natural forces around us. Either way we humans and natural forces seem to be in a self-perpetuating doom loop.
The ultimate job security, in early 2026 is in one of two area; denying the obvious and obscuring the king’s incompetence.
With wars and climate catastrophes in motion in more nations or even regions than most of us could name or count, the quasi-coherent explanations and justifications keep coming from official channels.
You have probably noticed that in the American newspeak media landscape, bloviating and evasion is the strategy, and an astonishingly clumsy state-controlled press, propaganda and bland assurances are everywhere.
And, of course, each day’s news is crazier and more unbelievable than the day before.
The world is not on fire. Everything is under control. The president knows what he is doing.
Instead of counting sheep to get to sleep each night, each one of us could count catastrophes.
We’d have to do it by category; civil war? European war? Asian war? African civil war? Internal revolution? Regime change by force? Fuel shortages? Power outages? Drinking water shortages? Floods? Famines? Food contamination? Pandemics? Revival of once eliminated diseases? Droughts? Crop failures? Food shortages? Rampant inflation? Cyber security lapses? Digital sabotage of utilities, banks and essential services? Bacterial contaminations – deliberate or accidental? Government intrusion and overreach? Increasingly authoritarian and repressive governments around the world?
Or how about religiously inspired apocalyptics who are convinced that no category or domain of destruction is enough?
Pick one – or wait for one to come knocking (literally) on your door. Who needs dystopian novels or films when our tax dollars are at work undermining every aspect of civilization. And basic human dignity. And identity.
After all, artificial intelligence is only rushing in to fill the vacuum left by the evaporation of human intelligence.
Who needs history or knowledge – or skill – when we can have a chat bot ‘hallucinate” any statistics, any “memory” even any documentation that we might want.
These forces, beliefs, conspiracies and trends have been developing for years – generations – centuries perhaps, but they have one internal weakness in common.
Layer upon layer, year after year, they have accumulated, but they only have the power we give them.
It will take some unveiling and untangling, but it can be done.
What if we all, individually and eventually collectively decided not to play by their rules? Not to value what they have told us we should value? Not to dedicate our time and energy – and our lives – to their causes?
What if we decided, clearly and definitively what we wanted; and fought for that instead?
What if we centered our lives around two or three core principles that were our own and protected them from outside manipulation or control?
We have seen baby steps in that direction with home gardens, neighborhood groups and family compounds.
But what if we demanded that our politicians do what most of them pledged to do – to represent us. And any who represented themselves or their families above their constituents were, by definition, derelict in their duties and disqualified for any office.
And any official person who designates themselves as arbiters of how any of us should live our lives has clearly lost their bearings of what it means to be a public servant – or agency.
What flag I fly, or who I associate with, or what I read or eat should be of no concern to any government cubicle.
What if we valued, or put a higher value on mental well-being and peace over buying power or appliances?
What if we valued friendship over acquisitions or income?
In our togetherness, castles are built. Irish Proverb
And, “in our togetherness” castles are torn down. And cities are built. And civilizations rise and fall.
And healthy, mutually advantageous economies are developed and sustained.
What if we decided that only an economic policy that was conducive for all would be allowed?
What if we decided that laws and rules should ensure that no one is neglected, abandoned – or privileged – by the mechanisms of the economy?
No billionaires and no homeless should be the parameters of a culture and economy that really was for all.
How about no servants and no masters? No bullies and no victims? No accused, and no accusers?
We all live with – and to some degree make peace with – our contradictions.
Some we can minimize, while some will simmer under the surface and emerge – or lash out – when we least expect it.
Bullies and manipulators lie and distort. What if we demanded truth.
Truth is confirmable, undeniable reality. Those who ignore the truth, in any arena, and who urge us to ignore it as well, do so for their own purposes – never for ours.
There’s an old saying – Anything that disturbs your peace costs too much.
What if we decided that any new device, any new vehicle, even any new investment would be evaluated based on what it added to – or subtracted from – our mental well-being?
What if we decided to go one day a week on something like an economic sabbath – and went a full day without spending any money. No online shopping, no spending of any kind. What if we spent that time doing everything except spending; reading, visiting neighbors, talking to family members, writing or reading? Or just walking. Or spending time – not money – at a local park or public place?
You can learn a lot from sitting still and observing.
I live near a park with an area that has never been logged or developed. There are many trees that are multiple centuries old. Sometimes I sit and look at them. Or lean against their massive trunks.
They remind me that a human lifespan is like a single passing season to them; that civilizations and grand plans rise and fall in their shadows; that humanity’s greatest fears, hopes and accomplishments are like breezes passing though the lower branches.
Some of those breezes have blades, of course, but even those can be withstood, and centuries after the butchers come, the trees return – and even prevail.
If there is anything we humans must learn from the chaos, pain and violence of the 2020s, it is that we humans, life on earth, even the earth itself, cannot prosper, heal or grow under the level of stress and crisis we have constructed around ourselves.
Our bodies, our minds, our souls and our relationships cannot bear this level of crisis. Our restoration is within – and around – us. We can feel it alongside us. We can reach it and touch it.
The personal is political. The political is personal.
“This isn’t who we are” some of us said not long ago. But it was.
And now we wonder…who are we? How did we become strangers to ourselves?
Who are we if not the ones who baptize, justify, ignore or even celebrate our own ugliest and most vile impulses?
If “This isn’t who we are”, who are we? And what of those who say, in a hushed or piercing voice, or by voting - “Yes, this is exactly who we are”?
It took years of constant lies to separate us from our truest selves.
Those who lie about others have been lying about themselves. And us. And they have built careers and fortunes on their lies.
Their lies are like vapor – and will dissipate at the slightest hint of truth. And one avenue of stepping up in the name of truth can be found here.
Reality is waiting underneath it all…like a tree that has been waiting a thousand years
.