Hmmm, a Krystal drink with a Bud Lite chaser. Interesting lunch.
NOW I believe that roadside trash is an effective way to gauge the health of humanity. So today, I took my camera with me on my Sunday afternoon walk. Basically, the roadways around my neighborhood are buried in trash. Check out my survey.
As I continued on my walk I came across a man working in his front yard on a busy road. His yard was full of trash. I said, "It's unbelievable that people would throw trash right in your front yard."
"That's just typical of the world today," he said, in what sounded like an African or Caribbean accent.
"But it's depressing me," I said.
"You just have to pick it up and go on with your life.," he said. As I walked away, I turned back one more time as he was picking up bottles, cups, and cigarette boxes.
I have been hit with a powerful new idea!
Last Thursday, I attended a meeting of the Atlanta Leavers, who are dedicated to introducing people to the work of Daniel Quinn. This famous author is known for the books Ishmael and Story of B. I read Story of B soon after I became an activist in 1997.
During the meeting, I was hit with a new thought that just blew me away. All my life I operated on the assumption that the attributes that helped early humans survive — like greed and selfishness — would ultimately lead to the undoing of humankind. I always operated on the precept that humans were inherently and fatally flawed.
But at the meeting Thursday night, the idea was thrown out that maybe humans are NOT FLAWED. Look around. Are dogs flawed, are cats flawed, are birds flawed? Nope. So, as I ran my errands on Friday afternoon I observed people and came to the conclusion that WE ARE NOT FLAWED!
For hundreds of years we've been hiding behind the excuse that we are flawed, and we use that as an excuse to justify our bad actions. We are born sinners, according to Christianity. So, God created us but we are born flawed? No. I am told that God gave us a Free Will, and long ago we chose sin over righteousness. Yes, I believe that.
But it's not in our genome to be rotten, bad people — we make that decision on our own. I believe, as of Thursday, that humans are GOOD — we just have an odd way of showing it. But the vast majority of people really ARE good, and a lot of the "bad" we see in others is actually how they are perceived or a result of how they are treated.
So, to those of you who are chunking your beer bottles, cigarette cartons, and fast food wrappers into the woods and in people's yards, come on, man. You just can't say, "Well I'm a sinner anyway, what the hell" and throw your McNasty wrapper out the window. And you can't say, "We humans are fatally flawed. We are SUPPOSE to litter God's creation — THAT'S OUR FLAW." Sorry, that is unacceptable.
Yum, yum. Someone had Krystal Sunrisers and coffee for
breakfast. I hope they enjoyed it. I hope they didn't spill crumbs
inside their Mercedes.
Anyway, getting back to my litter and health-of-humanity correlation, I must say that humans are not doing well. In regards to the cigarette cartons I found everywhere today, of course I don't expect people to take care of the Planet when they don't even take care of their own health. And in regards to the tons of fast food wrappings I found, well, I guess you are suppose to eat it fast and then get rid of the trash fast. I guess people's yards and greenspace are the personal trash cans for those in a hurry.
So, like I say, humans are not doing well at all. Whether we will have the wherewithal to save ourselves from our own self destruction and from the abuse we give to Mother Nature remains uncertain. In the meantime, the next time I take a walk I think I will bring a trash bag.
No comments:
Post a Comment