Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes 16

What I find concerning is how slow we are. Of how many of us just stumble and muddle along as though nothing is wrong. Of how many people still drive their cars, buy new ones, and whine off at the mouth with their usual First World Problems about high insurance premiums and parking fees. Of how many idiots still take fossil fuels for granted as though they are always going to be there for us and that even if our use of them is destroying our planet, and eventually us, nothing really has changed as long as we can get to our hockey practice, our yoga studio, the mall, or fill in the blank. We still use plastic bags and other single use disposable products with impunity, and oh the mighty and strident whine that rises up to heaven when anyone suggests a carbon tax or a ban on plastic bags or on single use paper coffee cups! Climate scientists give us, generously, until 2050, more likely 2030, before things have gone beyond no return. There are already several climatologists who believe that we are now past that point, and that we are going to have to white-knuckle it and cope with what is going to be a very bumpy ride. In the meantime, our cities are full of comatose dumbasses who go on with their lives as though nothing has changed. Who are those dumbasses? Who is that woman with the single use coffee cup, glued to her smart phone? Who is that guy who just asked the checkout clerk for four plastic bags, apparently not even thinking of carrying in his backpack a cloth reusable bag? Who are those people who live as though nothing has changed, nor ever will change? Why are they so unaware? Who raised them, who educated them? What do they do for a living? Where are they from? Why do they act and live as though they neither care, nor would it make a single difference whether or not they did? It seems that the majority of those who are doing anything about addressing climate change constitute, demographically, a very narrow minority: highly educated, mostly white people who graduated in the liberal arts and in the environmental sciences. The rest of us? We have a of catching up to do, those of us who are willing to unplug from our phones, our cheap entertainment and whatever we take, drink or do to get ourselves through the night. The first thing we have to do is work on ourselves, examine our values, our attitudes and how what we are doing, or neglecting to do, is going to impact on others, the environment, and ultimately on ourselves. What drives me close to despair is the very logical fear that not enough people are going to be up to the task. They are simply too happy, comfortably drowning in our culture of addiction, be it tech-addiction, shopping-addiction, gambling, drugs or craft beer. We have to stop drugging ourselves and begin facing our inner void and to reckon with our pain and emptiness and loss, if we are to begin this turn around. Before we can begin caring for others we need to start caring for ourselves, and this has absolutely nothing to do with numbing our pain and everything to do with facing ourselves in the cold brilliant daylight of truth. The truth shall set us free.