Life offers us many realizations in darkness, that may not be available to us during the light of day. Oft times, it’s during these moments that the veil of blindness is lifted and we can truly see.
photo credit: Robb North
Someone once said that it’s those things that we don’t understand that we fear the most. Trust is one of those things that’s not bred into us. Our mammalian brains have been programed from birth to either fight or flee those things that we don’t understand and without understanding, we do not know if we are safe.
photo credit: h.koppdelaney
But our brains have played a trick on us. Our brains trust those things that we both see and hear. To us, those things are real and are to be trusted. However, along the way we’ve become very adept at lying to one another. We see and hear things on television, the news and from people we trust that are not real, though our instincts tell us they are. We listen to politicians we trust tell us that “Things are OK” when they are really not. We run into situations every day that should be telling us to be wary, to be afraid, yet we continue on as if these things were the most normal parts of an otherwise normal life.
But once in a while, its during moments of darkness, when we are alone in a world without outside influence, with only the quite darkness of our own thoughts and the clean moonlight shining down on our faces, that we realize how much of what we see and what we hear, is an elaborate lie to keep us from thinking for ourselves.
Moments like this often take place when we find ourselves in a much bigger place than our own lives.
photo credit: Est Bleu2007
We hear it every day. There is no such thing as man made climate change. CO2 is plant food that’s good for the planet. We have plenty of water to drink. “Over consumption is patriotic and our right as Americans. Freedom is about being able to do whatever you want and anyone who doesn’t agree is a socialist, ungodly person who is taking away your rights.” These are lies. Lies that during the light of day, may make a little sense. They may make at least enough sense to allow us to sleep during the darkness. But if we think about them, if we think about others for just long enough to stop stop thinking about ourselves, these lies vanish into the ether during moments of thought induced dark clarity.
photo credit: ` TheDreamSky 꿈꾸는 하늘
I have been accused of taking too big a “world view” when it comes to Climate Change. I’ve been told that when looking at global issues, the issues become cloudy and hard to focus on. What I’m really being told is that in the absence of consensus, it is best to believe in the issue that is going to most convenience me. I disagree. I believe that in the absence of consensus, it is best to believe in the issue that is going to most convenience mankind. I believe this because God is in the details.
photo credit: atomicjeep
I believe man made Global Warming is real because I see small details that lead to a bigger problem. When I walk on a path near a creek not far from my home after a hard rain, I see the plastic bags and soda bottles that have settled in branches six feet off the forest floor, carried there by flood waters caused by the stripping of the creek due to too much water being diverted into too little green space. I see the number of asthma patients rising every year as a result of pollution. I see the grocery carts full of frozen, boxed frankenfood that have contributed to the doubling of obesity and diabetes in just the last ten years.
photo credit: gui.tavares
I drive past corn fields grown not for human consumption, but for high fructose corn syrup and cattle feed. I visit a park with a scum filled pond caused by over fertilization of neighborhood lawns. I live in a town (just like you do) with foreclosed homes caused by people who went blindly into mortgages they didn’t understand or were to greedy to care about. I see people walking down the street with coach handbags and burberry coats who don’t have enough money for a healthy lunch. I see row after row of public storage space where people stash their stuff because they don’t have enough room for it in their McMansions. I see the waste and abuse of our natural resources every day, and I see the aftermath of this abuse in our air, water and soil, not to mention our unhealthy, overstressed and un-meaningful lives.
photo credit: darkpatator
But in the dark of night, where the coach handbag has no meaning, where the bottle of Diet Coke has no satisfaction, where the plastic bag brings no convenience and where anything I have ever bought, used or discarded means less to me than our global health, I know the truth.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I feel the exact same way but could never have put it so eloquently. My hope is that more people are awakening to the truth because the lies just aren’t holding up anymore. We are not blind sheep following Monsantos, Cargill, Big Coal, Merck, (unfortunately I could go on and on) etc. We are intelligent, caring human beings who are concerned about our family’s health, our neighbor’s family’s health and the health of our planet. Bravo Adam!
Thank you Wendy! There are enough of us out there who believe the same things, that change is being made. Lets just hope it is being made fast enough.
Adam, Thank you for this commentary. I lived on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in 1968 (at Hotel Kibo)while I was a tutor at Marangu Teachers College. I ate healthy while living at the Hotel Kibo where, sometimes, we ate strawberries almost as large as our lemons. I watched children walking to school under banana-leaf umbrellas when the rains came. Once, on an airplane I told an attendant that I’d flow over Mt. Kilimanjaro many times and lived on its slopes, but it was always cloud covered. The pilot actually circled the great mountain so I could really see it! Such a thing would never happen today. the first year I worked in East Africa there were few radios. The next year even little cowboys, walking behind their herds, had access because of China’s trade. In the 1960-1980’s there were few telephones. In 1999 everyone seemed to have a cell phone. While in a bank I saw a man using two! Looking at a photo I noticed the Maasai moran were using cell phones! Thanks, Adam, I didn’t buy a thing for Christmas. I’m recycling wrapping paper, everything. Loved the photos, too.
Hi Nadine,
thank you for the comment. It sounds like you’ve lived quite the life, and are doing everything you can to help save our world for the next generations. Good for you! Keep up the good work, and thanksfor stopping by!
Correction: I’d flown over Mt. Kilimanjaro many times! I couldn’t edit fast enough.