Earth Day 2022

Earlier this year, I realized that sometime in April I would most likely create my 500th post since I began this blog in 2010.  I thought about which topic I might choose for this auspicious occasion, then decided to let situations and events dictate the choice.  Now, as I begin this post, I realize that I shouldn't have even bothered to wonder what my topic might be, as it is clear to me that a post about the environment, about the importance of recognizing humanity's responsibility towards our planet, is the only real choice.

So, another Earth Day, one year past the 50th anniversary of its inception, and I guess the big question might be, has it mattered?  Has the, now global recognition that we are stewards of Earth, not just another species trying to survive, made a difference in how we treat our home?

I believe that the answer to that question is not clear cut, but as is typical with any complicated issue, a mixture of yes and no, and might also be split between how we first reacted to the problems we were causing to the environment, and how we are reacting today.

They say that admitting a problem is the biggest hurdle to solving it whether that problem be personal or collective.  But there is a second part to that equation, one of persistence.  How often do we hear of and experience the first flush of success in addressing a problem or addiction, followed in time, by a return to the allure of the immediate gratification that marks any dependence?  

I see a similar pattern in our global reaction to the realization that we were poisoning our planet.  Before beginning this post, I reviewed the posts I have already created within my blog, finding that I have 20 such posts listed under the title Environment.  The one for which I have provided a link is from September 2019, and details a number of environmental success stories.  Sadly, far too many of these accomplishments occurred in the initial blush of efforts to combat our negative influences on the environment.  

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-ozone-layer-and-other-environmental.html 

This is not to say that more recent efforts have not also achieved some successes.  But the simple fact that the last administration was cheered by so many Americans for removing us from the Paris Agreement, demonstrates that we have taken a step backwards from the days when addressing air and water pollution, removing lead from our paint and car emissions, and cleaning up our toxic waste dumps, was a bipartisan political effort, even if actively fought by certain industries.  Now, just uttering the phrase climate change means certain removal from the protection of the political boss from 

Mar-a-Lago.

Fortunately, environmental awareness has penetrated the structures of our lives, social, business and political, so that even though we have and continue to experience some backlash to placing the health of our planet (and therefore our own) at least on par with the profit motive, there is cause to celebrate the achievements of the environmental movement in the last 5 decades.

For instance, last Friday Nora and I attended a trail opening in our neighborhood.  This particular trail filled a gap in the Schuylkill River trail that will eventually stretch from Philadelphia to the headwaters of the river in Schuylkill County, about 140 miles in total.  Imagine that, a project that involves federal, state, county, local and private monies and volunteers to provide a walking and biking trail for public use.  The simple fact that this type of trail was conceived and created over the course of decades is certain proof of the reach and popularity of environmental awareness.  

Add to this type of outdoor public area, the 60 plus national parks, and tens of thousands of state and local parks and recreation areas, not to mention the multitude of paid workers and volunteers who maintain these outdoor sites, and it is easy to conclude that Americans are all in on the idea that enjoying the natural world is not only beneficial, but a necessary ingredient to a happy, well balanced life.  

After the majority of human existence which required us to be outside as part of our daily drive to survive, we are now returning to the outside world for pleasure, to renew our bodies and souls.  And, in so desiring this form of enjoyment, we have become reacquainted with the process of living in harmony with nature.  With the concept that for us to thrive, we need to manage how we use our resources, need to be cognizant that tomorrow's open land, bountiful game and plants, will only be there if we employ sustainable methods of harvesting the animals and plants on land and in the ocean.  

In essence, we are relearning the techniques used by the original inhabitants of the Americas in conjunction with the intermixing of the new technologies that enable us to produce more food on less land.  

And so, in these days when our global need for energy continues to spiral up, while our finite sources of energy become the subject of war and conflict, drill baby drill is the worst solution, the solution which denies this growing realization of how to interact with the natural world. It is a simplistic and short term response to a complex and long term challenge, a response that fails to learn from all the other times in the past 50 years when a shortage of refined fossil fuels inspired the very same reaction, rather than a redoubling of efforts to seek energy sources that worked in conjunction with the planet, rather than as a source of destruction.

It all reminds me of a story I wrote in May, 2011, the link for which I have provided below.  

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2011/05/energy-conundrum.html

Still, and despite the negative tone of the above story, it is my sincere hope that in 100 years, our progeny will mark this time as indicative of the sea change that saved our planet from the harmful effects of our mismanagement of resources and the profit now attitude of the most greedy among us, a change led by a renaissance associated with the realization that only by working with nature will humanity continue to thrive.  A full circle, one might say, from the days when surviving the vagaries of nature progressed through the various inventions which enabled us to control nature until the hopefully full understanding that it is not dominion but cooperation and harmony that must describe our relationship with the environment.

Punk Rock Jesus

My daughter (Rachel) and daughter-in-law (Abbye), as well as Rachel's dog, Piper, visited us for the last 10 days.  It was a wonderful visit, full of good times, love and laughter.  I continue to enjoy the freedom that retirement has brought, able to entertain without concern of having to go to work, able to be spontaneous during visits from my children without concern for responsibilities that could occur if still tied to a job.  

During their visit, I read my first graphic novel, Punk Rock Jesus, written by Sean Murphy, which I borrowed from Abbye.  Not sure how representative of the genre is this book, but the graphic novel is certainly a different form of literature, a different way of expressing ideas and messages, as compared to what I am used to, and especially different from the recent books I read by Vera Brittain and Dorothy Lessing.  Still, if retirement is not an appropriate time to seek out new forms of art, then what is the point of working all one's life if not to expand one's experiences rather than seeking a comfortable bubble.

Anyway, reading a graphic novel strikes me as taking some practice; I am afraid that I most likely did not get all the meaning behind the book as desired by the author as the pictures tell as much or more of the story than the words, and I am more used to seeking meaning in words primarily.  I would imagine that were I to start reading only graphic novels, then over time I would be able to retrain my mind to seek substance in the pictures first, words second, but since I needed to be conscious of this process, needed to make myself look at the pictures more intensely than I usually do, it made the process of reading the book more labored.  This is not to say I didn't enjoy it, I did.  Perhaps the best way to describe it is that even after taking lessons in a foreign language, the experience of reading a book in that new language would be similar in that the process of converting the new language to your native one would most likely interfere with the story.

Before I get into commenting on the book, I glanced through some previous posts which touched on the topic of religion.  This first one, linked below, was written in April 2017, and discussed the never ending battle between science and religion.  I wrote it after reading about Galileo in one of the Lapham's quarterlies that I love so much.

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2017/04/science-vs-religion.html

The second one is from January 2016, called the Intermixing of Religion.  It was inspired by 2 separate articles in the Smithsonian Magazine, one concerning the search for historical Jesus and the other about his mother Mary.  

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-intermixing-of-religion.html

OK, so what is Punk Rock Jesus about?  Well, yes, it is about someone called Jesus who joins a puck rock band, but that happens far into the book.  Much of the story involves the process, and how science and religion react to such a possibility.  

In a nutshell, a company called Ophis led by a man named Slade creates a reality show based on the idea of cloning a genetic Jesus from the Shroud of Turin, called the J2 project.  Simply put, the virgin mother to be is watched live on TV throughout her pregnancy, as is the birth and early life of the new Jesus.  While it is certainly a dark novel, with all kinds of negative viewpoints of science, religion, god, and people in general, and features an ending for the cloned Jesus not unlike that of the original Jesus, it does not reflect pure hopelessness, or at least I didn't take it as such.  I though it more a lesson in how most people have good and bad in them, even someone purportedly cloned from Jesus.  And, while our suspicions that the whole J2 project is contrived merely for TV ratings are realized in the end, it is still interesting to see how an ideologue, whether controlled by science or religion, can be blinded to do, think or justify almost anything.   

From this respect, even the character of Jesus becomes a victim to the extremist type of thinking that complete devotion to a belief can often lend itself to, as he completely rejects the notion that he is Jesus, turning to purposeful chaos and self destructive acts to vent this reaction.  

I know this sounds a bit far fetched, perhaps even blasphemous to those who consider the original Jesus to be the actual Son of God, but I think by remembering that this person was not really cloned from Christ's DNA, it might be easier to accept such a reaction.  To me, remembering the day when true believers in American democracy attacked the officers stationed at the US Capitol building to interfere in the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another, due to a misguided belief in a man rather than our country, should remind us that such blind devotion can lead to all sorts of actions, sensible or not.

I imagine that the tension between science and religion will be with us for quite some time, Star Trek not withstanding.  While we are at least not arresting scientists in the name of God, I do fear that there are those on the far right who may not stop at just disagreeing with Fauci and his attempts to help us handle Covid should they gain power in our government this fall. 

And, of course, which particular religious tribe you belong to will also continue to cause violence and death in our world, which reflects again on our vulnerability to words which inflame our differences, even though those words are supposed to be a reflection of god's representatives, words which if they really were "of god" would certainly not encourage prejudice, distrust, hatred and violence.

In the end, I don't know enough about the author, Sean Murphy.  Don't know how much of my own philosophy I am projecting onto the lessons of his novel.  But I am glad that I had the opportunity to encounter Punk Rock Jesus, and that Murphy chose this particular topic for his book.  It offers a unique view of religion, something we need, will continue to need for the foreseeable future.

Ego VS Selflessness

I caught the end of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty yesterday.  As it ended, I was struck with an idea about writing a blog concerning the topic of Ego and selflessness.  I assume that this thought came to me due to the scene at the end of the movie.  For those of you who have not seen this movie, I will not detail it here, but instead recommend you watch it when you get a chance.

The reason I thought a topic such as this might be interesting to explore, is that, as a writer (so proclaimed), it is difficult, if not impossible to separate one's ego from one's literary efforts.  After all, just the fact that a writer deems his/her ideas to be of enough significance to put them to paper, to attempt to not only share them with others, but to fashion in that attempt a message or specific meaning, is an exercise in letting loose the ego.  

While I imagine that it is possible for someone with low self esteem, or low sense of their own value, to write, or engage in any type of artistic endeavor, it takes a more developed sense of ego to share that work with others, to put it into the public arena, for good or bad.

Ego is often ridiculed in association with those who act or assume they are better than most everyone else.  There has always been a disdain by the everyday person for those who don't do the hard work that keeps society functioning, who exist in a world where the sheets are always clean, the food always hot and plentiful, the money always available to satisfy any whim, even though all those amenities and advantages are just there, with no effort.  To those of us not born in the lap of luxury, there is sometimes solace in believing that those people blessed with winning the birth lottery that provided for them most or all of their material needs, would not be able to survive the "real world", if not for their inherited advantages.

Yet a strong ego is also necessary to help drive those who innovate, those who think outside the box, those who fight against conventional thinking to create something novel.  Is it not partly ego (along with patriotism) that drives the Ukranian people to fight against overwhelming odds to remove the Russian army from its soil?  Not to mention, anyone who takes a scalpel in hand to operate on someone's brain.  

Ego as defined as a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance, seems a critical attribute for an advancing society to desire in at least a reasonable percentage of its citizens.  We want to nurture that sense of self esteem in our children so they will see no obstacle as insurmountable, and in our nation as a whole so together we can solve any problem.  

Did it not take great faith in our collective abilities, or at least of those who worked for NASA in the 1960's, to believe that we could send a manned rocket to the moon when, at the time, we weren't even sure of the math to make the physics work?  

Yet, it is just as clear that ego without a portion of selflessness, can be a negative.  While we might admire a privileged person who volunteers in a soup kitchen, or who knows the first names of their employees, and those of their spouse and children, our admiration can be extinguished for those who have exchanged their humanity for money and possessions, for those who have long ago jettisoned the understanding that it is only when people as a whole benefit from great achievements that great ego helps mankind.  It does a country little good when a resurgence of national pride comes from the subjugation of the citizens of another nation, or the dehumanization of certain minorities within that country.

Whether you are Vladimir Putin or those legislators who are proposing laws which isolate the LGBTQ and transgender community, actions driven by an ego that has lost touch with its sense of humanity, or dare I say it, with the unfathomable creation plan which has generated the myriad of species, and variations within those species for us to experience, are actions that betray the very foundation of ego and self-esteem, by destroying that very same sense in its victims.

I have had a number of conversations with friends and family concerning my belief that 5% of people are assholes.  Often the discussion begins with a debate on that percentage, but I stand by that number, for now.  Unfortunately, assholes come in all shapes and sizes, all genders and races, all socio-economic levels, although I have a personal belief that as income increases, especially into the percentile of the richest 5%, the chances of one being an asshole improve dramatically.  Generally, discussions along this line lead to a debate of how many of those assholes are born that way (nature) or created through experience (nurture), but we always agree that if not for that 5%, life would be so much easier for the remaining 95% of people.  

Is this the true challenge for humanity as given us by the creator? To figure out how to handle the 5% who are assholes while still living positive lives individually, and leaving the world a better place, collectively?

Also, not only are there assholes all around us, but each of us behaves like an asshole, from time to time.  It is as if we all have the gene, and it can rear its ugly head on occasion, but happily it remains recessive most of the time, in most people.  Yet, like a virus, it can spread quickly among us when the conditions are ripe.  

For instance, these past 6 years have shown just how quickly a spark can release the gene within us.  Who could have thought 6 years ago, that so many people would let their selfishness shine so much, would demonstrate against learning the facts of our national history, or against wearing a mask during a pandemic?  Yet that is what we see all around us, as the result of that great orange asshole we once called president.  Someone whose ego is so lacking in selflessness, that he is willing to sacrifice our country's democratic principles to prove that he could not have possibly lost an election.  As if making America great again can be achieved by rampant selfishness when it is genuine selflessness as demonstrated by those brave Americans who gave their lives, literal and figurative, to the causes of freedom and equality. 

Hopefully, just as McCarthyism, which brought out the asshole in so many Americans in the 1950's, we will soon see the end of this particular era, either as people realize the damage their inhumanity is causing, or open their eyes to the danger that an ego without selflessness can cause to our democracy, and to each other. 

And, as for my struggle with controlling my own ego while still expressing my opinions, I will allow my occasional readers to judge how I am balancing the two.