Paradigm Shift
Farm fields, neatly sewn patches on an overworn sweater.
I sulk for the tightly bunched herds of forest-
trees mosh, huddle for protection, vulnerable to the changing landscapes around them-
fragmented from others of their kind-
invaders steal their resources.
Rivers bleed but some veins have been sliced-
poisoned, bled dry.
Sandbags line the banks of streams, are there waters humans haven’t dipped their hands in?
Wetlands cannot breathe, buried alive by concrete-
then recreated elsewhere, upon land disconnected.
I drive in my personal, independent vessel of transportation along side others in their own worlds wondering if they see what I see.
I see powerline after power line dominate the sky line.
Wondering why, why was this fine?
A beautiful sunset laced with synthetic molecules-
saturated with gases that warm-
causing clouds to swarm.
Billboards line the fields, shown to passengers in their vessel-
shown to trees, birds, the rain as if they care about Jesus, adult stores or burgers.
The products, ideas, values that aim to keep us imprisoned-
In a trap of expectations-
Bait to our invented desires, needs-
inflicting unfulfillment.
I drive through suburb after suburb-
a maze of sprawl until I hit the towers rising high into an overcast sky.
Concrete beneath my feet, I smell gasoline, hear sirens scream-
human piss, fast food grease-
cracks in the concrete fill green with weeds-
vines, bushes, trees, grasses invade human made structures-
I leave.
The grasses aside the highways speckled with plastic, what could be found in the seas.
And can you please direct me to the nearest shoreline absent of cigarette butts?
Who is responsible to clean?
But where are the landfills? For I know they exist, kept away from public eye-
hidden behind hills of trash themselves, buried, re-grassed-
maintaining disconnection with our waste, mass consumers-
consumed by a consumers reality, owned by those who provide, needs conspired by greed.
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Can we take a second to exude our emotion! Our outrage?!
Good, if someone sees or hears.
Can we halt our tendencies to dominate, devour, exhaust, destroy, supress, waste, immerse in an image of ourselves and instead-
Make peace, gather, breathe, build, express, give more than we take-
Feel more than we numb-
listen more than we talk.
Fortify ourselves with nutrients and the things we know are good for us-
for the sake of humanity and this concept that we are everlasting.
If only simply to protect the world in which we depend upon, that has made us what we are, that is intrinsically of importance.
Me//written sometime in 2018 probably.
~Reflecting back on this piece, that I ended up reading aloud at an Eco-poetry slam at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, I realize how deeply pessimism has rooted within me, a handful of seeds that initially began as new knowledge.
The more we learn, the more questions we have. The more things may seem completely out of control, which I mean, they most likely are. The only things within our direct control, from my own experience, are our actions and reactions. New knowledge forces us to be uncomfortable, to expand, to grow.
Especially environmental studies, or the inherently controversial study of “natural resource management”, as someone who was drawn in during a course in environmental ethics and through my naturally curious personality, tends to set a dark mood right off the bat.
You are brought into awareness, pretty fast, about all of the problems that ultimately this study is set out to attempt to fix. Yet it’s at such a young stage in history with just a tiny fraction of the population who are at least somewhat familiar with basic concepts.
Climate change, the thing that hangs over head as a darkening cloud, that hasn’t quite yet burst into precipitation yet creates such pressure that you may feel as though you are carrying the entire world.
And that’s what it’s felt like. As new knowledge influenced my perspective, either through unveiling or by switching lenses I’m not quite sure, I began feeling as though I was responsible for both it happening and for what happens in the future.
What do you do with that?
Well over time I learned that I needed to take that weight off. I couldn’t fix the entire issue by myself, no way, though I always tended to want to fix things myself, too proud to ask for help.
I could find my niche, as many others had. Maybe. Maybe just maybe I could find a focus.
But then it still haunted me, this strong desire to disturb others into action. I wasn’t going to be the only human (so it felt) that wanted to do something but didn’t know what.
Welcome to the world of environmental activism. The only thing that took the edge off was yelling with crowds in the streets, feeling the collective power, sensing community angst and drive for change. And radically changing my lifestyle to not only better fit my values of wanting to be comfortable as just my natural myself and complement my increasingly deviant tendencies but to also reduce my impact on the environment. I started looking so terribly critical upon people driving cars every day, wearing make up, eating meat, using plastic, etc. To a point of disgusting judgement that held me back from attempting to reach out to these people about the issues with their lifestyles or the social constructs and norms that ultimately derived such ignorant lifestyle behaviors. I also felt like, who was I to say something about how another person lives. Who was I overstep? I had forgotten the purpose of creative persuasion that was drilled in me throughout my high school AP English classes.
And even throughout my years investing in environmental activism or euphemistically, environmental advocacy and awareness work, I still would experience nipping reminders that this is such a multi-faceted issue intertwined with almost every other issue in the world.
This is multi-disciplinary. Maybe I could be the one to bring people of different disciplines together if I wasn’t to be one of true discipline.
How could I play this role?
Dabbling in sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, religion and human health, I felt that these seemed to mesh well with concepts of environmental justice and finding solutions to environmental issues. These, as well as my weaker subjects of economics, politics, technical sciences and history, not to mention all of the other subjects that exist would need to eventually start being seen as overlapping and connected rather than silo’d and independent. And that would only ever change if we refrained from seeing ourselves as independent individuals. From the American standpoint, this is one of the roots of our issues.
This of course was the result of a rebellion away from monarchy and scared of dictatorship. Yet there was no way that we were going to exist in anarchy sustainably-placing our wellbeing in the hands of an oligarchy. Thinking we still had power in democracy.
But our votes are indirect, our words against established systems will never be heard unless someone of power decides to change things and essentially gives up their power. Or we give up our comfortable lives and demand change with no remorse or pause.
We as a country need to dial back our power and commit to working with other countries, listening and supporting rather than using force and violence and handing over money.
But that of course is a much bigger issue than I am prepared to get involved with.
Maybe I was meant to be a revisionist. Come up with the ideas that may eventually come into fruition. To be one who supported ideas of change. To move past old models and reorganize, retheorize by first considering why these current models aren’t working and how we got here. A new paradigm pusher. A radical? It sure meshed with my deviant tendencies. And how? By trying to become familiar with many things and question all forms of tradition.
And I’m still on this quest. To try new things everyday and keep learning from people. I don’t always have questions, hell sometimes I don’t even know where to begin. Sometimes I still can’t get past the point of judgement enough to hear people out or have any desire to know where they are coming from.
But I know that that is counterproductive (I can’t be counter-everything). If I cannot return to “the cave” to inform and persuade and connect and try to communicate, then what else shall I do?
Miscommunication may be the most frustrating thing to inflict the human race. However, the root is the question of the purpose of humans on earth. It’s left up to interpretation and with conscious minds, we act beyond instinct. When instinct has been the one thing that allowed nature to just, move as nature.
Consciously, I’ve gone off on a tangent. However, it all can come back to the root of my pessimism. Environmental issues…communication between humans particularly about our purpose on earth…big ideas that I don’t think I’ll ever completely figure out.
The more we know, the more we realize what we don’t and will never know, and yet how do we know we ever knew to begin?
And somehow I am still struck with hope, positivity and idealism. Contradictory forces within me, from pessimism one day to optimism the next. Intrigued by utopian thought, peace, resilience. Fueled by conversation, humor, sarcasm and the ancient technique of transforming our suffering that is satire. From poetic writings to current day memes and TikTok.
Here we are.
And here’s a reminder for myself and for you, to just breathe. For that is one element of our nature that could take all of our attention if we truly allowed it.
