The Earth Is Our Responsiblity (Yours and Mine)

The recent weather forecasts have been awfully uncharacteristic for these winter months. On top of that, meteorologists had to come up with what to call the super storm from the summer of 2012--"el derecho," which in Spanish means "straight..." I don't know. Maybe I'm a cynic (definitely), but I feel like the Earth has been slowly awakening...

I was lifting weights when the Louisa County, VA earthquake struck. I was on my last set of curls at my gym in Lynchburg, and engaged in an intense stare with myself in the mirror. Here comes rep number fourteen... and all of a sudden the mirror starts to shake. Growing with intensity, the entire building is shaking now and weights are falling off the racks. "I AM GOD--" I thought for about a split second as I saw my face reddening, and then I realized what exactly was happening.

And the tsunamis out East--Sri Lanka, Japan... the earthquake in Chile in 2008... I don't know, man.

I can't help but think the Earth has been snoozing the last few hundred years. Enter 'genius' humans who start the industrial revolution and spend 150 years trashing the house. Earth's gonna be up in a couple of hours and we've gotta clean this place up before we get taught a lesson.

I wrote this to myself the other day:

Fear not the ways of men. The Earth, in time, will solve any political struggle or economic injustice. All will be set right. There is a natural balance in our universe and on our planet. If we don't respect that balance--if we don't maintain the equilibrium, the Earth has no choice but to intervene and maintain order. And it won't have to do it through secretive means. It's not a government agency that operates behind closed doors and with no transparency; Earth is in your face. Radical weather, radical change. No warning, no voting, nothing.

The Earth will have its way with us. We ought to be focusing on solving global climate issues instead of arguing over how much debt we're going to allow ourselves to have, who can smoke what, and who can't marry who. We need to fix our planet, and our ways of thinking (and consuming!). We need to worry about what our planet is doing. The Earth has been telling us things. It has been giving us warnings, and yet the common people aren't willing to change their lives to do anything about it. We're not listening--I know I'm guilty of it. Well, the Earth is raising its voice. And unless we can stop thinking about the Earth as capital instead of life-space, and change the way we relate to it, I don't know if humans (all of us, anyway) will be able to make it.

Or we find another planet... I guess that's typical lazy-human fashion. "This planet's practically wasted at this point, we should probably stop."

"Or we waste it till it's dead, and eventually we'll have to find a new one."

"Yeah, the second one."

Like, what the hell?! The WORLD (you know, the planet, Earth) will not change unless WE make a CONSCIOUS decision to change OURSELVES.

If writing has taught me anything, it's that I do it because I want others to change, but more so because it helps ME change.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world." Gandhi said that, and it's cliche by now, but I finally understand what he meant. The world can't change unless people change. Guess what: we're people. I am a person. Therefore, I am responsible. I have to change.

We have to be willing to take on these issues by ourselves if we have to! We are responsible. That's the issue with humans. There are so many of us that the blame gets evenly distributed and it doesn't feel all that bad. But that means that all we have to do in order to change it is a tiny gesture--recycling, not buying so much, using local goods and services, etc. We all have the capacity to solve real-world problems. That's what people do. But there are so many of us now that unless we all take part and realize what's at stake, we stand to suffer a great deal.

Choose to play an active role in life. Create a dynamic experience for yourself. Do not be subject to meaningless patterns and routines. Think for yourself. Act for yourself and for the good of others. And be cool to the Earth--that's it.

I would like to leave you with two quotes. The first is from a legend of a man, William Cooper, a radio personality, author and patriot, who was murdered by federal agents dressed as teenagers outside of his home two months after he broadcast details from U.S. intelligence regarding 9/11 that suggested the government had prior knowledge of the attack.

He proclaims, "If you’re not walking on the razor blade, you’re really living in a kind of death-existence. You have to have that danger facing you, that "if I slip I’m dead." That’s what makes you live; that’s what gives you life; that’s what gives you purpose.  Any man or woman who does not have principles for which they are ready and willing to die at any given moment is already dead and are of no use or consequence to themselves or anyone else, and will be unhappy for the rest of their life. Like it or not, everything is changing. The result will be the most wonderful experience in the history of mankind or the most horrible enslavement that you can imagine. Be active or abdicate. The future is in your hands.” 

And the second:

In the words of one of my favorite bands, Born of Osiris, "we are the victims, but we are also the crime... and the only one who can judge us is the Earth in time."

The video to the song "Follow the Signs," from which the above lyric was taken, is a semi-cheesy CGI representation of a conscious being being sucked into a black hole and arriving in a room full of clergy dressed like they're from the middle ages. It's hella weird, but pretty cool. Oh, and the clergy are lizards... but I didn't really need to tell you that.