Monday, June 22, 2009

Paradigm shift

I'll be the very first to admit that I'm a bit of an idealist. I've always had a strong sense of the importance of justice and empathy. I defined myself and my life based on the value I placed upon these concepts and I expected the world to do the same.

Whenever I was made aware of something horrific I was filled with a sense of outrage. How could we let this happen? How could we deviate so far from the norm?

And then I realized this weekend, just this weekend (and I want to say here, although it might not reflect well, that I'm 29 years old), that there is no sort of "good" norm that we're deviating from. That actually a world of justice and equality is completely abnormal.

I don't want to sound like a kid here, but this thought, this revelation, well, it kind of stopped me dead. It sort of struck through me with a force I'm still reeling from.

And it got me thinking about the values that are instilled in us, about the morals we are raised with, and about how these affect us as people and as a society. Raising children to believe that they are unique, perfect snowflakes unlike any other person before or after them is wrong. It creates selfish people with an exaggerated sense of their own worth (please pardon my grammatically incorrect [or at least grammatically awkward] gender neutrality here). Selfish people who have an exaggerated sense of their own self worth do not good neighbors make. Try asking to borrow a cup of sugar; they won't answer the door.

More than that, raising children this way is alienating. It forces divides between and among us at a time when we should be recognizing our commonalities. How else can we face the challenges created for us, by us? How can we deal with a swirling trash vortex twice the size of Texas, global warming, war crimes, starvation, and poverty (just to name a minute amount of the daunting issues which we now find ourselves confronted with) with this individualistic, cowboy, Manifest Destiny perspective?

We can't, that's the thing. Our world today has become so small and its problems so big that we cannot afford to perpetuate the myth of the perfect snowflake.

Anyway, apparently my epiphany is that life is not fair, there are many people in the world who work to make others suffer, and it is difficult to call attention to this because these are things that are painful. These are things which are better tolerated with ignorance.

But that ignorance, although soothing, is dangerous. That cliche, ignorance is bliss, is correct in one sense, because yeah, it's easier not to know where chicken sandwiches come from and it's easier not to know how many people die daily from preventable diseases and how could we live with ourselves, for example, if we truly understood the human suffering behind statistics?

This kind of ignorance numbs us to other people's suffering; we don't care because it's too difficult to be cognizant. It's simply too hard to know. And yet, through our ignorance, selfishness, graspingness, and self entitlement, we create (or at the very least tolerate) more suffering, and more than that, we are in a major sense responsible.

Because although we act like we don't know, we know. It's like how people say they don't want to know what's in their hot dogs. Why not? Why is it okay to turn away?

It's okay because each snowflake values itself so highly that it becomes blind to the vulnerabilities of everything and everyone else. How else can we make sense of our ability to ignore reality, or worse, our sheer lack of empathy in the face of human suffering?

Friday, June 19, 2009

Swirling Trash Vortex Twice the Size of Texas

I'm sure you know about this. Apparently everybody already knew? My sister said it was even on Ellen the other day.

I, however, was unaware of it until someone mentioned it in passing on NPR. That's not to say that I'm, like, not into Ellen, because I am. I love Ellen. It just so happens I missed that day's episode (this whole thing here, this whole Ellen vs NPR thing I'm doing, it's caused by a compulsion I have; I must be absolutely honest 100% of the time. This compulsion is due to some teenage trauma and sundry other experiences, and it can be detrimental to my writing at times, but I just can't not do it), but I heard some dude on NPR saying "there is a swirling trash vortex twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean oh my god."As if one could say that in passing.

Because, like, no one is really talking about this? Or if they are, they aren't talking to me. When I mention it to people, usually one in three will know what I'm talking about. The other two go like "No way. Really? No way." And I'm all like "Yeah, uh huh," and then I convince them with my powerful rhetorical skillz.

Or not. But either way, I feel like this swirling trash vortex is a perfect metaphor for, like, so many things.

And I also feel like it's cheap, you know? Like it's cheap to make the swirling trash vortex a metaphor. Because, come on, it's already so big. Does it really also need to be a metaphor?

But yes, why not, sure it does. It does need to be a metaphor. A metaphor for, like, all the things we are unaware of. All the poison and trash and utter nonsense that we condone without realizing it.

As a teacher I want to help instill in my students an ownership of the swirling trash vortex. I don't want them to think of it as something outside of themselves. Because, and this is me being so honest I can barely stand myself, the trash vortex is us, right? I mean, it is.

And that's really the metaphor. Whether or not you add the imagery of water swirling down the drain or not.

We, and I mean we as in humanity here, we have a problem. And really, not only do we have a problem, we are the problem.

I'm trying to get a job now. Things like this, things like the swirling trash vortex twice the size of Texas, things like this kind of sidetrack me, at least a little. Things like this make me wonder about how much of what I consume is composed of plastic. How much of me is actually, at this point, totally plastic.

And partly this, like, makes me want to inform the next generation, and it partly makes me want to hide underneath my bed for the rest of my life (plastic Armageddon can't get me there, right?). Because learning about a swirling trash vortex twice the size of Texas is more than a little intimidating. It's more than a little sad and awful and horrific. It's in point of fact absolutely ugly.

And it makes me question my desire to educate. Because learning about this makes me feel so small and impotent.

Although perhaps that's a very good lesson for the kids to learn.