I was buying some jugs of drinking water at a supermarket, just in case. So were quite a few other people. Hurricane Danielle had just missed us, but hurricane Earl wasn’t going to, and right on its heals was tropical storm Fiona. Behind her, tropical storm Gaston was building to hurricane status and a tropical depression off the coast of Africa was gathering strength to be next in line. No one, the people around the almost-empty water shelves stated, had ever seen anything like it.
One woman wasn’t interested. All she wanted to do was get by the men with carts and their discussion. She pushed in front of her a load of frozen and other perishable foods, the type of stuff everyone else was avoiding.
“Let me through, please,” she said, adding. “You’ve scared my kids with all this talk about hurricanes. They won’t even come into this aisle.”
It suddenly dawned on me that she didn’t believe in hurricanes, or at least ones that would affect her. She belonged to the school of not believing, because if you did that, it wouldn’t happen. Believe in it, and it would. In the old days of magic, this belief had real power. If you name it, you make it real. As long as she didn’t admit a hurricane was coming, it would not come.
The more I thought about her that day, the more I realized she was doing the right thing, or at least the human thing. We are not a species that likes to confront unpleasantness. Why upset yourself over something you can’t control? If the truth makes you uncomfortable, believe a lie.
As a species, we have for several generations believed the lie that our children will live in a better world than we did. It isn’t happening. That belief is based on human greed, the theory that more is better. It has led us to rape our world in the name of a better life for our kind, all the while swallowing the lie that to make the rich richer is good for everyone, everywhere. To change what we’ve done to the world we live in would mean the elite giving up power and the good life they have with it. This will not be done, cannot be done, because we have been convinced their loss is everyone’s loss.
Global climate change has likely gone beyond the point of salvation not because there is lack of evidence for it and its effects, but because it is too inconvenient for the general mass of human beings to believe in. Polar meltdown? Not my problem. Hurricanes? Not my problem? Tens of thousands dead in Asian flooding? What’s that got to do with me? Drought? There’s still water when I turn on my tap!
And wouldn’t the government be doing something if there was a problem?
That lady had the right approach. The reality of what is going on in our world today is scary. Why admit it is there if all you are doing is making yourself and those around you unhappy?
It has happened before. I am certain those on the Titanic who drowned but refused to admit it was happening until the water closed over their heads suffered much less than those who admitted what was about to occur and shook with fear waiting for it.
“Let me through, please,” some lady would have said to the men pulling on lifejackets and shouting hysterically about the ship going down. “You’ve scared my children with all this talk about icebergs. They won’t even come out of their stateroom.”
One woman wasn’t interested. All she wanted to do was get by the men with carts and their discussion. She pushed in front of her a load of frozen and other perishable foods, the type of stuff everyone else was avoiding.
“Let me through, please,” she said, adding. “You’ve scared my kids with all this talk about hurricanes. They won’t even come into this aisle.”
It suddenly dawned on me that she didn’t believe in hurricanes, or at least ones that would affect her. She belonged to the school of not believing, because if you did that, it wouldn’t happen. Believe in it, and it would. In the old days of magic, this belief had real power. If you name it, you make it real. As long as she didn’t admit a hurricane was coming, it would not come.
The more I thought about her that day, the more I realized she was doing the right thing, or at least the human thing. We are not a species that likes to confront unpleasantness. Why upset yourself over something you can’t control? If the truth makes you uncomfortable, believe a lie.
As a species, we have for several generations believed the lie that our children will live in a better world than we did. It isn’t happening. That belief is based on human greed, the theory that more is better. It has led us to rape our world in the name of a better life for our kind, all the while swallowing the lie that to make the rich richer is good for everyone, everywhere. To change what we’ve done to the world we live in would mean the elite giving up power and the good life they have with it. This will not be done, cannot be done, because we have been convinced their loss is everyone’s loss.
Global climate change has likely gone beyond the point of salvation not because there is lack of evidence for it and its effects, but because it is too inconvenient for the general mass of human beings to believe in. Polar meltdown? Not my problem. Hurricanes? Not my problem? Tens of thousands dead in Asian flooding? What’s that got to do with me? Drought? There’s still water when I turn on my tap!
And wouldn’t the government be doing something if there was a problem?
That lady had the right approach. The reality of what is going on in our world today is scary. Why admit it is there if all you are doing is making yourself and those around you unhappy?
It has happened before. I am certain those on the Titanic who drowned but refused to admit it was happening until the water closed over their heads suffered much less than those who admitted what was about to occur and shook with fear waiting for it.
“Let me through, please,” some lady would have said to the men pulling on lifejackets and shouting hysterically about the ship going down. “You’ve scared my children with all this talk about icebergs. They won’t even come out of their stateroom.”