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(post
:title "Wishful Thinking"
:date (string->date* "2010-07-08 00:00")
:tags '("musings" "ecology" "energy")
(p [I used to be a magical thinker many years ago. Whenever I wished
for something I would keep looking at the road side while sitting
on the backseat of my parents’ car or when I was walking home
from school, hoping to spot the object of my dreams.])
(p [For many years I badly wished for a tortoise or a turtle to come
into my life, just waiting for me at the side of the road. As I
used to find coins just about twice a month, I reckoned I could
stumble upon animals just as easily. Animals longing to let go
of their wild nature, willing to become my companion and just
waiting for me to come by.])
(p [It never happened. (It should also be noted that my dream to
stumble upon a tame specimen of Gallimimus at the side of the
road never came true.) I never found a turtle at the side of the
road.])
(p [Until today. A dream came true, but it had unnoticedly turned
into a nightmare. When I walked out the door this morning I
caught sight of about four centimeters of what seemed to resemble
a six-legged crab. As I got closer I could make out that one of
the legs was actually a tail and another was a head on a long
neck. Closer yet I recognized it as a tiny turtle standing
squarely on the right side of my path.])
(wide-img "turtle.jpg"
"dead turtle")
(p [Noticing an ant crawling on its eye I realized that it was dead.
Its limbs had not completely stiffened yet when I picked it up to
move its body off the street and onto the sidewalk where I went
on to take a picture of a shattered dream.])
(p [In an attempt to stretch this story into a metaphor for something
more dramatic than the mere death of critter—albeit a cute one—I
chose “Wishful Thinking” as the title for this entry. Although
this story is not representative of anything in particular, it
did remind me of what I recently read on Magical Thinking in
Derrick Jensen’s “What We Leave Behind”.])
(p [(There’s much I disagree with when it comes to Jensen’s
worldview, but this section is quite powerful.)])
(blockquote
(p [Are you a magical thinker? I know that too often I am. With
apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, let’s play a little game.])
(p [If you put a bumper sticker on you hybrid Prius that reads
,(em [Visualize World Peace]) in the hope this will bring
about world peace, you might just be a magical thinker.])
(p [If you buy a hybrid Prius in the hope this will slow global
warming, you might just be a magical thinker.])
'(p "[...]")
(p [If you think buying compact fluorescent light bulbs will slow
global warming, you might just be a magical thinker.])
'(p "[...]")
(p [If you think this culture will stop killing the planet without
being force-fully stopped, you might just be delusional, and if
you don’t act to stop this culture, then you will be failing in
your responsibility as a living being (p.224/5).]))
(p [“Ugh, did he just really turn a story about a rotting turtle into
an environmental protection guilt-fest?”—so it seems. What I was
aiming for was that: remembering my innocent dreaming and my firm
believe that watching just closely enough will make the unlikely
more likely, in the face of the distasteful partial manifestation
of that dream demonstrated just how unsatisfying Wishful Thinking
can be. Observing the road side would have only increased my
chance of discovering unpleasant road-kills. My convenient idea
of looking out for what is easiest to spot just addressed the
wrong problem (turtles aren’t the type to lurk at the side of
roads) and at the same time left me unsatisfied. I think I’m
eventually driving the point home: attempting to solve the wrong
problem is unrewarding in every way.])
(p [If you think our culture will survive if only we could manage to
find an alternative to cheap oil, you might just be a magical
thinker—or you might be part of the actual problem.]))
|
