Prisoner-labourers
in a typical African open pit mine, many of whom will "end up in
shallow graves, executed for suspected theft, for lack of production,
or simply for sport"
(photo by Jean-Claude Coutausse/ CONTACT Press Images)
For
several years I've been touting what I call Pollard's Law, which I
think largely dictates what humans do, and don't do, regardless of what
they think, believe and intend:
| We do what we must, then
we do what's easy, and then we do what's fun.
There is no time or energy left over for doing the right thing, what we
aspire to do, what we think we should do, what's merely important.
None. At work and at home, we do what has to be done, and then, most of
us do what's easy and/or fun -- watching TV or a movie or
reading or
tweeting or dancing or doing crosswords. |
This has nothing to do with laziness. This is human and animal nature,
engrained in our DNA. We are preoccupied with the needs of the moment,
and when there are none, we rest, we play. It's a billion-year-old
survival strategy.
My British friend Nick has written about the importance of letting go
of our beliefs, fears, hopes, desires, ambitions, assumptions,
anxieties, plans, distractions, stories about the past and future,
stories about who we are and are not, and about what is happening and
should be happening in the world, our reactions, anger, despair, grief,
preconceptions, concerns about what others think, illusions about
control, and judgements. Much of what we think we must do is driven by
these fictions we can't let go of, and if we can let go of these things
then we may start to realize other things, perhaps more important
things, that we must do, that we cannot not do.
Nick explains that when we let go of these fictions, this gunk that's
become attached to us, we can bring ourselves to the present, to a
realization of what really is, here, now. This takes an enormous amount
of courage, because some of what is true, here, now,
is terrible. It requires a willingness to let our heart be
broken by unbearable truths.
In my recent post about what I care about, I wrote that the "social me"
cares about:
- Helping people cope
with civilization's collapse.
- Obsolescing industrial
agriculture.
- Helping people find
the right collaborative partners.
- Deschooling society.
- Helping people learn
about sustainable community.
- Helping people learn
to deal with complexity.
- Helping people
discover the work they're meant to do.
But, I lamented, the "visceral me" cares instead about:
- Eating. Sleeping. That
really hot girl over there.
- All-life-on-Earth,
especially cats, dogs, wolves, birds, trees.
- The people I love.
Guess which list is more urgent (must-do stuff), and easier, and more
fun? No contest. I do what I must: eating, sleeping, my job, household
chores, exercises. Then I do what's easy and fun: writing this blog,
imagining possibilities (including some with that really hot girl over
there), conversing with those I love, learning new things, listening to
good music, walking in the forest, playing with cats, watching the
birds, dancing in the moonlight. Hmmm... no time left today for that
first list of seven important things. Well, perhaps tomorrow.
There are many assumptions, intractable problems and fears that
underlie that first list. These are massive, almost unfathomably
complex problems. What would make these problems must-do's for me? I
think if I were really present with these issues, if I were to
go out into the world and realize the consequences of my inaction on
them, it would break my heart. I would 'real-ize' that these are more
than ideals, more than good things to do: my failure to act on them
makes me complicit in the horrific suffering, the squandered
opportunity to avert or at least mitigate ghastly forthcoming crises,
the tragic mind-numbing waste of human life, energy and enthusiasm, the
massive, devastating crimes against nature (mostly out of ignorance),
the consequences of our dumbed-down society's dreadful imaginative
poverty.
One of my favourite posts is called No
Noble Savage, and it describes
some of the atrocities going on in the world, right now, always and
everywhere. Maybe I should witness them now, in real time, real space.
Despite my vivid imagination, visualizations are not enough to break my
heart. It is too easy to turn away. I know people who are fighting
these atrocities every day, and they tell me the reality is a hundred
times worse than anyone could imagine.
The question is: Am I prepared to give up my comfortable life, and my
paralyzing, reality-distorting fictions? Am I prepared to acknowledge
my complicity, through inaction, in everything I rage about? Am I then
prepared to let go of everything I have, and parse my time even more
finely than I do now, in order to act, meaningfully, beyond just
writing about them, to make the world a better way in at least some of
the seven ways in my list above?
Perhaps for the first time in my life, I think there is a 50-50 chance
that my answer to these questions is yes.
As much as it breaks my heart to admit it, there are millions of
writers out there, many of whom can write about the things I know and
care and have ideas about, better than I can. Yet even as I say this my
instincts, my nature, tell me that I am happy now and plunging into
these important and complex tasks will make me less so, and how much of
a difference can I make anyway?
I'm tired. I'm hungry. There's something else I want to write about.
And hey, is that really hot girl over there looking back at me?
|
My book is available to US buyers
from the 
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
MY GRAVITATIONAL COMMUNITY
