The Curse of the Hyperationalist

I once read Carl Sagan write "Nothing else is going to matter if you can't breathe the air or drink the water." For some reason that stuck with me, and I guess it is one of the thoughts that is running through my head each day. I wonder who else is thinking about it, consciously or unsconsciously. W.E.B Du Bois, one of the first black intellectuals, wrote about a kind of veil hanging over everyone's consciousness, blinding them to the truth of life... he wrote about it in the context of slavery, looking at how people were treated and how it all just a bunch of secret rules that people were following that missed the point of life. The hidden assumptions that structure our perception. And yet, if we look, the truth is evident. Is it not thus with climate change? There is the theoretical reality that continuing to increase the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air while simultaneously destroying the earth's forests and oceans is going to turn the planet into an inhospital wasteland. Let's take it down to the small scale: a garden. Say you have this beautiful garden, producing all kinds of good food. But underneath there is a barrel of oil. You cut down all the plants and consume or burn them. You don't save any seeds. You grab a shovel and start tearing up the earth and roots. By accident you hit the oil barrel. Some oil comes spurting out, covering the earth and killing any life that might be in it. It gets all over your hands, which begin to hurt. But you grab the barrel and dump the precious dark liquid into the gas tank of our Ferrari, spilling more along the way. You throw away the can and tear off in a blast of flame, which catches on to the oil and starts the whole thing ablaze. The next day, oil all spent from a crazy night of joyriding, you get back to your home - the garden. You are tired and hungry. You want some food. But it's all gone, and the plants are all dead, and the soil is destroyed. Eventually it'll come back, but long after you've starved to death. So you start looking around and see your neighbour's garden. And rather than requesting some food because you are hungry, you decide to just climb in and steal. And we know where that ends.

I titled this piece 'The Curse of the Hyperationalist' because it seems to me that is what I have. I can see. I can read. I can feel. The logical outcome of the current system is clear. I know why there is so much cancer in the world. I know why there is so much unhappiness. Yet it's so subtle, so ingrained, it is hard to cope. There are days I want to shout. But I was raised to be polite. So I try to do my work, bring about change, take time to fill my well. Probably the single most beautiful thought that keeps me alive is the Rainbow Gathering, which happens every year in a different forest, and where everyone lives together more or less in peace, under the sun, amongst the trees, just living. Solar panels have started to appear, though for the most part we don't really need them. Fire, water, fresh air, good earth, food all around, and something deeper at the heart of every day. It's an incredible experience, one I can only compare to childhood. I think it is the secret destiny of our species, to learn to live in peace.

"The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said 'This is mine,' and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civilian society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 1754

And so, day by day, I strive for change. I know we will get there.

I was reading up on the civil rights movement the past month, for a talk we had at Concordia, and I remembered a song that I love, that I had a feeling was connected to it all, so I looked into the history. When he wrote A Change is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke was a hugely popular black pop singer in America, penning many major hits such as You Send Me and The Chain Gang. He wrote the song after two major events in his personal life; the death of his 18 month year old baby the June prior, and then being denied entry to an 'all white' motel while on tour with his band. I found this video while looking up the song online, and it helps me remember how far we have come, in all directions. I am grateful for the equality we now recognize, even if we don't always honour it. But I am nostalgic for a simpler time, when the Earth was in better shape, the air a bit purer, the birds more numerous, the cities quieter at night. I dream of achieving the balance, of making the right choices now, to transform society and restore our precious planet. And I know I'm not alone.


Sam Cooke A change is gonna come
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