Let the Children
We watched an episode of Netflix’s Our Planet, episode two I believe. In one stunning scene, Attenborough narrates along as walruses leap — okay roll — to their deaths from tremendous heights after scaling rocky cliffs they had no business climbing. It’s all in slow motion and pretty impactful. (See link below. I can’t decide if I’m going to bother linking out from this blog, but for now I will!)
Tangent: This site, Convert Case, seems handy, it converts your text to sentence case, lower case, upper case, etc. And most importantly, aLtErNaTiNg case to really bring back that Nineties website flavor. I was also considering doing this entire blog in lower case to really throw it back but since I became a real writer that part of me died. Also I read somewhere that people who have the desire to write in all lowercase are really just compensating for something. In my case, sure, but I wish I knew what...
In Singapore a few months ago, we went to a friend of a friend of a friend’s holiday party. We were told in advance to bring our own utensils — although our friend of a friend would bring some for us if needed — and to contribute only vegan friendly food for the potluck, etc. Upon arriving we were given the lowdown on how the bathroom worked, which was there was no toilet paper and if you had to wipe, to please use the provided clothes and then deposit them in the little basket. I’m not sure if this also applied to poops but I would’ve assumed so. Our first instinct was “WTF, our own utensils? No toilet paper?!” but the people were lovely and the host so gracious and everyone there was basically a hardcore yoga person and very into the environment. The household was zero waste and when we were winding down and cleaning up, there were beeswax wraps in lieu of plastic wrap.
Sustainability!
It was admirable, this dedication to non-waste. In my early college years, I was vegetarian and cared about the environment and animals and was very careful to wear basketball shoes that were made of canvas and not leather. I was on a crusade, and I cared! Somewhere along the way I lost that and now I’m a person who refuses to recycle and thinks the ban on single-use plastics is similarly pretty useless. Should we burn plastic waste, should we bury it, should we use less of it, what is the answer? De-population is the only right answer, but hey. People who seriously take the Thanos solution are well, generally assholes. I only take the Thanos solution seriously 60/40.
Part of my adulting over the past few years has also somehow dovetailed into “is it convenient?” Part of it is just insulating yourself from life’s little displeasures. Saying “no” to non-stop flights, not driving an extra ten minutes to get the cheap gas, valuing time over money, etc. In fact, “adulting” is basically all money related as I’m learning. Anyway. What I’m suspicious of, mostly, is that I’m basically just arming myself with all the facts and figures in order to justify the convenience of not recycling, or caring about this or that, etc. In my twenties I loved a good debate, nowadays I shy away from them unless it’s for really trivial stuff, because then there are no stakes and it’s fun to go all-in. “Will Luka Doncic be better than X?” "What kind of bear is best?” That kind of thing.
My belief is that there’s a knowledge bar you reach for to justify your actions, and then you can wash away the little indiscretions with a wave of the guilty-pleasure hand, or whatnot. You just draw your own line in the sand somewhere. What’s your tolerance for X, what’s your willingness to change for Y. Back when I was vegetarian, I was very adamant about inconveniencing both myself and others — mostly my mom — for my preferences. I never really even gave it a second thought. “I’m vegetarian and so it will be.”
In a few years, will I find myself espousing the upside of not using toilet paper? My basic belief back then was that one could be convinced to be anything if you wanted to be. That applied across the board, to personality, religion, life choices, anything. Where there’s a will there’s a way. What I’m wondering nowadays is if I still think that, because mostly nowadays I worry about being a curmudgeon.
A few years ago my friend put to me the question of what in X number of years people would look back on and think was ridiculous, aka smoking in planes, something along those lines. His answer was the way we consume meat.
At the time I was undereducated about cows and their environmental impact and now I’ve been yeller number one about cow farts and how they are killing us all. This has not affected my consumption of beef, far from it, I’ve just mainly been educating myself to that I have some facts and figures to display. (And after yet another deep dive into the beef industry early yesterday morning, I craved an In and Out tonight, and subsequently got one.)
Anyway, of these feedlot cows’ lives, this was said by a rancher: "They have a great life. And one bad day.” Sounds lovely doesn’t it? Something we can all aspire to.
Tangent: This site, Convert Case, seems handy, it converts your text to sentence case, lower case, upper case, etc. And most importantly, aLtErNaTiNg case to really bring back that Nineties website flavor. I was also considering doing this entire blog in lower case to really throw it back but since I became a real writer that part of me died. Also I read somewhere that people who have the desire to write in all lowercase are really just compensating for something. In my case, sure, but I wish I knew what...
In Singapore a few months ago, we went to a friend of a friend of a friend’s holiday party. We were told in advance to bring our own utensils — although our friend of a friend would bring some for us if needed — and to contribute only vegan friendly food for the potluck, etc. Upon arriving we were given the lowdown on how the bathroom worked, which was there was no toilet paper and if you had to wipe, to please use the provided clothes and then deposit them in the little basket. I’m not sure if this also applied to poops but I would’ve assumed so. Our first instinct was “WTF, our own utensils? No toilet paper?!” but the people were lovely and the host so gracious and everyone there was basically a hardcore yoga person and very into the environment. The household was zero waste and when we were winding down and cleaning up, there were beeswax wraps in lieu of plastic wrap.
Sustainability!
It was admirable, this dedication to non-waste. In my early college years, I was vegetarian and cared about the environment and animals and was very careful to wear basketball shoes that were made of canvas and not leather. I was on a crusade, and I cared! Somewhere along the way I lost that and now I’m a person who refuses to recycle and thinks the ban on single-use plastics is similarly pretty useless. Should we burn plastic waste, should we bury it, should we use less of it, what is the answer? De-population is the only right answer, but hey. People who seriously take the Thanos solution are well, generally assholes. I only take the Thanos solution seriously 60/40.
Part of my adulting over the past few years has also somehow dovetailed into “is it convenient?” Part of it is just insulating yourself from life’s little displeasures. Saying “no” to non-stop flights, not driving an extra ten minutes to get the cheap gas, valuing time over money, etc. In fact, “adulting” is basically all money related as I’m learning. Anyway. What I’m suspicious of, mostly, is that I’m basically just arming myself with all the facts and figures in order to justify the convenience of not recycling, or caring about this or that, etc. In my twenties I loved a good debate, nowadays I shy away from them unless it’s for really trivial stuff, because then there are no stakes and it’s fun to go all-in. “Will Luka Doncic be better than X?” "What kind of bear is best?” That kind of thing.
My belief is that there’s a knowledge bar you reach for to justify your actions, and then you can wash away the little indiscretions with a wave of the guilty-pleasure hand, or whatnot. You just draw your own line in the sand somewhere. What’s your tolerance for X, what’s your willingness to change for Y. Back when I was vegetarian, I was very adamant about inconveniencing both myself and others — mostly my mom — for my preferences. I never really even gave it a second thought. “I’m vegetarian and so it will be.”
In a few years, will I find myself espousing the upside of not using toilet paper? My basic belief back then was that one could be convinced to be anything if you wanted to be. That applied across the board, to personality, religion, life choices, anything. Where there’s a will there’s a way. What I’m wondering nowadays is if I still think that, because mostly nowadays I worry about being a curmudgeon.
A few years ago my friend put to me the question of what in X number of years people would look back on and think was ridiculous, aka smoking in planes, something along those lines. His answer was the way we consume meat.
At the time I was undereducated about cows and their environmental impact and now I’ve been yeller number one about cow farts and how they are killing us all. This has not affected my consumption of beef, far from it, I’ve just mainly been educating myself to that I have some facts and figures to display. (And after yet another deep dive into the beef industry early yesterday morning, I craved an In and Out tonight, and subsequently got one.)
Anyway, of these feedlot cows’ lives, this was said by a rancher: "They have a great life. And one bad day.” Sounds lovely doesn’t it? Something we can all aspire to.
