Before I begin, I want you to do something for me. I want you to come with me to make-believe land. Pretend for the moment (if you can) that politics don't apply. That whether you lean right or left, or up or down - it's not important for the next 5 minutes. Think of it as political purgatory for the purpose of this musing. After you finish reading this you can go off and shout to the high heavens what you believe would make this country a perfect place to live, but for the time being just pretend you have no political views whatsoever.
Ok, now that we've gotten that out of the way (and while you're still here in make-believe land) I want you to imagine something else for me. Hopefully you still have some creative juices left. [I know the agony and exhaustion you're probably experiencing after having to pretend to not have a political affiliation.] So with all the energy you have left, I want you to imagine yourself walking down the street with your significant other (wife, girlfriend, husband, boyfriend, dog, etc). You're strolling without a care in the world, eating ice cream cones with the love of your life. As you're making your way through the city you don't notice that someone is waiting in a dark alley... watching you... biding their time. Slowly waiting for you to pass. Now imagine this faceless person sneaking up behind you with a knife, grabbing you and stabbing the edge into your side. The blade cuts deep into you, and as the mystery man extracts the knife, blood begins pouring out. He flees, and you fall to the ground clutching your side. Your life draining away. Now imagine your significant other casually walking over to a bench, calling 911 with her cellphone, and then finishing her ice cream cone.
This is exactly what I believe is happening right before our eyes with this oil disaster. The Earth has been punctured and is bleeding out, and all we can do is casually finish our ice cream cones while we wait for someone somewhere to get their act together and save this planet. Just to clarify, this isn't a "green" agenda or an "environmental" agenda. It's a "life" agenda. Whether you want to believe it or not, the Earth is a living creature. Like our own human bodies, it functions in miraculous ways we can't explain. Each and every part is important in the survival of this body. And if you take away one piece, the rest will quickly die without it.
I don't consider myself an intellectual (as you can tell by all the grammatical errors littered throughout this rant). I know my shortfalls and I accept them. I wish I knew all the answers because if I did, I would constantly be butting into your business. But I don't. I'm not smart enough to tell someone "Trust me. I know best." But I am smart enough to know this: If someone's bleeding, the quicker we stop that bleeding - the greater the chance that person will survive. I don't have the answer to the question of "How do we stop the oil?", but I do know that someone out there - much smarter than me - must certainly know.
So then why the laissez-faire attitude? Why aren't we doing more? I see a lot of people shouting "Grrrrr. I'm soooo angry!!! Look at all these dead animals!!!" "Let's boycott BP!", yet there still doesn't seem to be any immediacy. How can we just stand by while we watch the complete destruction of our home? The oil leak is only the pebble right now. It's the ripples we need to be worried about. This affects everyone. The Gulf of Mexico is quickly turning into a dead sea and our ecosystem, our food supplies, our health, our climate, and our general well-being will suffer. To say that it would not would be ignorant (or complete denial).
So the question I have to bring up is "What can we do?". This is exactly what I want to know. What can we do? No one actively goes out and looks for something to be depressed about. We go out of our ways not to see depressing things or anything that will affect our sense of happiness. But I do think this is something we should be watching. This is something we should be learning more about and not turning away from. Not so we can be depressed, but so we can be inspired. That's what I need right now. Inspiration. To know that this isn't a hopeless situation and that we can do something. That we can rally together and inspire change, instead of just sitting in our homes and saying "Oh how horrible. BP sucks." and then go about our regular lives as if nothing happened.
Look at all the amazing things we do as human beings when we see another in need. We come together in times of tragedy and surprise even ourselves. All for the sake of saving humanity. So where is our humanity right now? This is more than just dead animals and oil. This is about asking ourselves, "Should I just stand by and finish my ice cream cone while someone else fixes the problem - or should we come together to light a fire beneath the asses of the asses that are handling things?" I need to believe we can, because if we can't then why did we even bother calling 911?
We can always pray. Most of us can't do anything of any significance but when the time comes we can get rid of those asses sitting on their asses talking about kicking asses in D.C. Sorry I was in my imaginary world, and I liked it, but then some other guy came along and started changing my imaginary world into his imaginary world.
ReplyDeleteKyle