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Newsletter #16
In This Issue:
-Human Cancer
-The Point of No Return
-A Well of Patience
::HUMAN CANCER::
Recently I discovered that my next-door neighbor is suffering, and perhaps dying from cancer. While I don’t know her very well, I can only imagine the helplessness she must feel.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. But unlike the culprit in first place, heart disease, preventing cancer remains a mystery.
When I learned of my neighbor’s fate, I immediately began to wonder how I could help defend myself from cancer. I ended up thinking back to a lecture I once had in college, when a research scientist explained to us how cancer actually works.
Our genes, in the form of DNA, are the blueprint for who we are physically. They control the function and maintenance of our cells, including their growth, division, and death. Cancer is nothing more than a malfunction in our DNA that allows the affected cells to divide uncontrollably, which brings on a whole slew of problems that ultimately result in death.
In the midst of these thoughts, my mind wandered back to a quote from “The Matrix” that haunted me, and still does: “…Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague…”
Isn’t it ironic that one of our biggest problems, taking place within our own bodies, mimics what we’ve been doing to our planet for thousands of years?
Like cancer cells, we divide and conquer, having forgotten our role in the system, whatever that may be, and becoming a useless mass that does nothing but consume.
In the past, the likening of people to cancer would have done nothing but depress me. But there’s more to it than that. If the perils of cancer can shed light on our current situation here on Earth, then what we learn about curing it may also help us in a greater context.
::THE POINT OF NO RETURN::
One of the paths to curing cancer lies in fixing the DNA that normally controls cell division. Likewise, one of the ways to stop humans from overrunning this planet may be to fix the mechanism that kept them from doing so in the past.
I don’t claim to know what this mechanism is, but I suspect that it has to do with a cultural emphasis on growth….An ingrained value that tells us “more is always better.” It probably began during the Agricultural Revolution, when intensive farming allowed people to settle down and proliferate. Maybe it was the programming we needed to justify the ridiculous amount of work that intensive farming entails, in contrast to the surprisingly leisurely lifestyle that hunter-gatherers and extensive farmers enjoyed.
Even if I’m onto something, how in the world do you go about teaching people that more is NOT always better?
More importantly, how do I begin living by this principle myself? Years ago, I turned to the “voluntary simplicity” movement, embodying the “less is more” mentality. But I soon found that just like more is not always better, less is not always better, either. Rather, more is usually better, but only up until a certain point.
It’s this “point” that evades my understanding. How much is just enough? For example, a spoonful of ice cream is good. More ice cream is even better. But when is it too much? When my stomach starts to hurt? Or when I feel full? Or at 500 calories?
Perhaps this is an intuition that we used to possess, but lost along the way. After all, SOMETHING (other than extinction) had to stop early humans from eating every fruit in the forest, or else they would’ve died from starvation.
–Or maybe they DID consume everything in sight, relying only on their ability to find another source of food. Perhaps the only thing that stopped them from dying off was the fact that there was always somewhere else to go. If that’s the case, then logically, they’d eventually hit a point where there was no where else to go.
Maybe this is that point.
::A WELL OF PATIENCE::
Last month, I talked about keeping your emotions in check, and using them as productively as possible to effect change. But I’ll be the first to admit that it’s a lot more challenging than it sounds.
Just recently I saw circus animal trainers on TV slapping and beating grown lions into submission. I was disgusted. Immediately I felt so angry and at the same time so helpless. I knew that I could write letters, get laws passed, or do whatever it took to make it stop. But the bigger problem was that there were people like this out there in the first place—people who had no semblance of respect, appreciation, or compassion for anything but themselves (and sometimes not even that).
After a few deep breaths, I realized that the reason these people treated these animals like objects was because to them they were nothing but products—something to make money off of. It’s the same reason people all around the world are ready and willing to cut down a rainforest or poach a grown elephant for its tusk. They want to make a living. And the long-term value of a forest, species biodiversity, or even the well-being of an exotic animal all don’t translate into dollar signs. But somehow having clean, white pieces of paper, or a rare ivory sculpture, or seeing a lion jump through a hoop of fire, does.
Even if a law was passed that stopped trainers from abusing their animals in any way, it wouldn’t really make me feel better, because it wouldn’t really change much. No law has ever stopped any bad thing from happening. Ever.
Fixing things truly would mean changing the global economy to one where being destructive or wasteful is too expensive to be worth doing. One where using solar energy is cheaper than using oil, and wood from a sustainably harvested forest is cheaper than that of the Amazon.
But this is no easy task, and sometimes I start to feel hopeless and overwhelmed, and I just want to MAKE people stop doing stupid, destructive things. It’s during times like these that I turn to books that have a way of reminding me why I’m doing what I’m doing.
This time, that book was Reason for Hope by Jane Goodall, of which you’ll find a review on the website (http://www.SustainableWays.com/books/goodall.html). This woman has spent over 40 years watching people do insanely destructive things—to animals, to other people, and to themselves. But despite that, she’s maintained an enormous well of patience that’s allowed to her to keep going and working well into her 60s. Her story remains an inspiration to me, and if you find yourself pulling your hair out as often as I do, I highly recommend you add this book to your collection.
—But don’t forget that if you buy it from Amazon.com, do it straight from one of my links…Your support helps keep ME going =)
Till next month,
Krystle C.
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