The self is most fragile where it is the most rigid. You will learn now or you will learn later that strength is in flexibility and openness, not in a crystalline rigidity that shatters at the slightest knock. Climate change is happening in ways that humanity can observe, measure, and track with increasing accuracy and precision year over year over year. Humans as a species have never lived on a planet Earth with this concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We are witnessing and quantifying the consequences of that trickling down through our ecological systems in real-time in our lifetimes. This inspires such deep denial in some people, and denial tends to reinforce itself when challenged. I can understand and empathize with that denial because I understand how difficult it is to have my sense of self threatened. But when I felt that at points in my life, I took the time to learn and understand what makes up my idea of Me, so I could get a sense of where my powerful reactions emanated and what they were really telling me. Our senses of self are really just running stories we create to understand the many systems of our bodies and an impossibly complex world, and these narratives for most of us are deeply tied to our existing opinions of our selves as being good and a good person. Because of this, for many of us literally any new or contrary information about the basic facts of our lives or that world will be viewed as an existential threat. But we have to grow beyond simplistic labels, way beyond who is a good or bad person - we are all living on and dependent(!) on this one planet, and we are all part of this globalized economic system that rewards endless pollution and gives poor and non-white people the bill. This illusion is melting before our very eyes. We need to able to face the facts of this without fear of whether other people think were good people or not - we all participate and we can all help. Humans have already geoengineered the planet starting generations before any of us were born. We have collectively made that bed (or shit it, depending on your perspective). What matters is how we become better. Or if we can get better soon enough. The self is most fragile where it is the most rigid. You will learn now or you will learn later that strength is in flexibility and openness, not a crystalline rigidity that shatters at the slightest knock.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 23:15:20 +0000
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