Making a Difference, Future Tense

 Over the last ten weeks I’ve been given the unique opportunity to nurture body and mind and in the process practice some sustainability type stuff that I have been spieling about to family and friends since winter quarter. The question(s) now are: What have I learned, and, granted I’ve actually learned something!, what will I do with what I’ve learned?

            Here, there has been no profound, life-shifting change, but very subtle, slow moving alterations. A lot of lessons in life come like this, like slow moving snails, and part of the lesson is learning that some things take large tracts of time to process and to create a lasting affect on the way that we live. One must cultivate patience. There you go. There is one thing among many. Nobody is perfect. I’m sure that Rachel Carson wasn’t. Even David Sazuki, the prominent Canadian Environmentalist, who I’ve come to idealize in this green renaissance in my life, admits that, “there are many things I live with that keep me from being environmentally pure.” He reminds us that guilt is “draining and oppressive.” When the weight of the world is created collectively, it’s suicide to try and carry the burden on your shoulders alone, or alter the habits of life you’ve been building for years just cold turkey. When there is so much at stake, it’s hard to not want to jump into things with full force, but we have to be very careful. We have to take care of ourselves. Here family and friends and collective skill building prove invaluable. The individual can’t do it alone. The work is too much, and too hard           

            Not everybody is going to be a Rachel Carson, or a David Sazuki, or a Frances Moore Lappe. I realize this now. The world is going to move forward good or bad and people are going to pursue their goals. People will become lawyers, artists, mothers, car salesman, and politicians. The hope is that the gap between the environmental movement and the ordinary person will be bridged, or more so fused, and there will be no environmentalist, because everyone will be an environmentalist.

            For me, the least I can hope is that in my future life, even when I put down the environmental literature, even when I’m not fully immersed in a ten week project, I maintain these tiny steps as I call them. I pack my sustainable mess kit. I recycle. I ride my bike to get groceries instead of drive. I try in general, to eat less meat, because the reason why are many. And most importantly, I just maintain an awareness. If I slip back into unreality even for a bit, I have to make sure and remember the consequence and what is at stake here.

            Lastly, there is the question of whether or not individual actions amount to any sort of change in the end. I’ve heard the argument countless times before in class and in public discussion, “individual change won’t do a damn thing. We’re gonna have to attack the corporations and the people in charge.” To answer this I’m going to have to agree with Derek Jensen, in saying that we need people on all fronts. We need people working to change the system within the system and we also need people doing things in their ordinary lives.