Bemuddled

Bemuddled
by Scott Bradley

When I shared with a friend that post in which I said Pray For Plague he replied that he really liked it verbally, but wasn't it a bit negative and didn't it contradict my philosophy in general? It is negative, I guess, and it does in some ways contradict my philosophy, but it made its way to your computer screen because it expresses how I feel. I figured a bit of honesty is worth letting my contradictions and 'issues' air out in public.

The truth is, I am a bit bemuddled on the whole issue of environmentalism. How can I reconcile my deep love of nature and fear for its destruction with the way of flow and acceptance and laisez faire? How can I say All Is Well when all is not well with our fragile planet?

Ultimately, All Is Well, of course. It will all come out in the wash. In the infinity of space and time (and the exfinitity of no space and no time) and the Unknown Source of it all, how could anything be 'lost'? But there is also this present and real-enough human experience, and it has its requirements and its qualitative values.

Earth is good for humanity, and thus, from the human perspective, worth preserving. And Earth is also good in and of itself. When my heart fills with thankfulness and joy in just sitting among the poppies, do I need to question and justify this experience? I think not, therefore I am — more fully.

None of this gives me hope in the ability of humanity to stop, however. An estimated 160 species of living beings become extinct everyday. "Sustainable development" is not only an oxymoron, it is a pernicious lie. Recycling your plastic water bottles is not going to save the planet. Most all this "eco-friendly" greenism is a fraud intended to make you feel better about buying more, using more, disposing of more. We've got to keep consuming if there is to be growth and growth is the end all and be all of human industry and civilization.

I can thus be joyful in nature and attempt to share that joy with others, but I cannot yet see my way through to an activism imbued with hope. Perhaps this is a moral shortcoming and I should, like Confucius, strive for the implementation of the Good whether there is hope for success or not. But that saves nothing either.

Nature itself will, of course, solve this 'problem' in the end. Whether by preemptive plague (for which prayers are only a sentiment) or yet another aeon of reconstruction (for Earth has suffered massive ecological destruction in the past), it will all come out in the wash. And really, when I think about it, remove whiny 'me' from the equation and All Is Well once again in any case.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.