People hear their house is on fire every day. Through reports like the one you linked me here. You and me and no one in the world will ever save it by reporting like that. Such articles come from people who don't consider that these reports spread their own fear and pain, making the recipients depressed and hopeless. You're not in the world to exacerbate the suffering. You're here to see that you're overcome with suffering. You can do this when you realize that your hopelessness and anger about the stupidity of others just falls back on you and that the ego you are talking about is merely accustomed to indulging in pain.
If you think that your lifestyle is the one that everyone else should cultivate, then you are living in the illusion that people can do the same. They can't - for many good reasons I cannot list - otherwise this is going to be a book. Such changes in the concept of life are not radical changes. Radical is what deters.
Don't you have empathy for those who haven't realized how things really are? And don't you have appreciation for those who strive every day to do their part to be of service and help where they can? It is not only direct environmental efforts that bring about a change for the better. It is the psycho-social efforts by means of an ethical basis that do this.
Where do you experience in your personal encounters the fulfillment that can give you the satisfaction that you nurture someone to encourage them despite their blindness in this or that area, so that you have the certainty of having helped yourself and this person afterward?
If I imagine that I work with my young adults and I would pass on the burden of my resignation to them, what would I have achieved? That at one point in their lives they would have absorbed so much suffering from their surroundings that the Flood could also come after them. This has already happened, with you, with me, with everyone. If I let myself be impressed by the fact that my last hour was almost over and nature is about to collapse, what motive should I have for wanting to change anything?
I told you, if you insist on looking at your suffering and that of others, I will not keep you from it. It's your choice. I am a very practical woman and for my part, I have decided not to want to feed on it.
Yes, those fire alarms are indeed annoying. I suppose it would be easier to simply cut the wires instead of doing something to put out the fire or stick my fingers in my ears and go la, la, la so I can't hear it and tell others who still hear the alarms going off not to worry about it so they can stay calm, be at peace and pretend nothing is wrong. The problems our planet faces are totally unnecessary and preventable, but why try to do anything about it? I'll recycle my plastic water bottles and buy an electric car and everything will be just fine.
The Titanic is unsinkable, after all. Keep dancing. Guess I'll belly up to the bar and order a few double Scotches to make it all go away, grab a table with a good view of the iceberg and listen to the orchestra play on even as the dance floor begins to tilt.
The Earth has faced mass extinctions before and survived. Cyanobacteria lived through all of them and they will live through this one too. Humanity isn't very important in the greater scheme of things. Cyanobacteria is. Something else will rise in humanity's stead, maybe something even more interesting, something that isn't so delusional.
Humanists identify with humanity. That is the source of their pain in the face of human suffering and the threat of annihilation. It's not the warning bells that cause the pain.
One must transcend identification with the human form to identify with consciousness directly. I'm an environmentalist. I no longer identify with humanity, but I do identify with the biosphere, that mantle of life that covers the Earth in a living skin. That is the source of my pain. I have compassion for all life and lament the rapidly expanding extinction of species. I have little compassion left for individual humans or even humanity as a whole, since they do have the ability to transcend but steadfastly refuse to evolve and instead choose to indulge in their own comfort and dominance at the expense of all else.
It is not my intent to share my pain. It is my intent to slap people in the fact to wake them up. That might hurt a tad. Those who sit and cry will be miserable and pass from this sphere as will those who engage in denial. The rest might rise up and do something about it. Those are the people I'm trying to reach.
This post is now dead. I'm happy to continue this thread but let's do it elsewhere.
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Did it ever make a difference in your encounters with people when you beat them? Which one of them then pondered and developed further on that basis?
Is it the case that you have ever thought that your fallibility fell back on you and that you were accused of what you accuse others? How does it fit together that you reject humanity, when at the same time they are just as much a part of the organism earth as all other life? My conclusion from this is that you differentiate between your humanity and being part of nature and make a separation. That means you're a pest, too. And as long as you think of yourself as such, you will behave like that. I can see that you're turning yourself down.
By showing people their ruthlessness and wickedness, the only thing that results from this is discouragement and feelings of guilt. You mock their tears and their grief on top of it. As long as a person feels guilty, there is little good in it. I've heard about environmental degradation and disasters since I was a teenager. Up until well into my thirties, all this drove me to feel overwhelmed by the sheer impossibility of saving the world, feeling guilty and small in the face of the effects.
I have only learned to acknowledge my impact in the world as something good when I turned my back on the world's do-gooders and catastrophic enthusiasts and took examples that love people and nature alike and do not reject themselves.
I find Walk the talk a very suitable term for it.
You are wrong when you think that only an environmentalist is the true keeper of the planet. Be one, but acknowledge what others do to help and not destroy.
How can I take you seriously if you refuse and your humanity? Then who am I talking to?
You think it has to hurt to make someone understand? Have you been reasonable as a child and are you now that I have provoked you and let you see my anger? What does it mean when I hit you?
You don't differ much from those who think you just have to shake people long enough to wake them up. They don't do that. They never did. Your shaking is merely an expression of your pain that sticks firmly to you and that you intend to share with others. By putting water on your mills and confirming how bad things are. Did such people stand by you in a crisis, were they strong and loving to you?
What do you think your isolation is?
Haven't you already reached people who are worth reaching? How many more must there be? How many to confirm and share the fierce pain with you? Where is it your responsibility to refrain from doing so?
Don't you have a long life and how do you look back on it?
I do not expect any response to all of this and I have no interest in being addressed indirectly. I asked you very direct personal questions and you answered me with generalities.
I am interested in you. That's all. Believe it or not.
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