I think I'm channeling Dr. Bronner

I can't wake up early anymore. I made a first attempt at seven, back to bed at nine... woke up at two to hear a man's voice fill the court yard in a short punctuated, "tone it and bone it". Laughed a little, made some coffee, and read more of "The World Without Us". It's so nice to be able to be so leisurely. It helps having nothing but a cd-clock-radio and a laptop to distract me. It's amazing how people can be so occupied by doing nothing at all if given enough toys and errands to run. I really like having little, little apartment, little things, little to do. I'm making a conscious effort to enjoy the feeling while I can. In two weeks I will be immersed in a busy world of tackling new, complicated and hopefully interesting topics. Grad school and all the dedication it might demand of me and a long term plan coming to fruition. It all adds up to make me almost feel spoiled... I feel as if I'm getting everything I want lately. Well... leave it to me to find guilt in there.

Anyhow... the amount of free time i'm sitting on gives me a lot of time to think and read up on things. Like how in Norway they're banning claims by any car manufacturers of "clean", "green" or "environmentally friendly" cars. It's dishonest in part because it gives people a feeling that somehow these lesser evils are somehow helping to counteract damage done by other cars and trucks when in fact the only claim these corporation should be able to make would be comparative to other cars. Now is not the time to be smug and complacent because you dropped down a few extra thousand for your Honda. It is encouraging to see a more centered and realistic approach being taken at a time when greenwashing seems to be in full swing everywhere. It's not so much that everyone and everything needs to be perfect starting right now... that's unattainable and unrealistic, however if we all could just see the effect of our daily actions in more tangible terms -- even if we all continue to go about our days unchecked -- we would still manage to ground ourselves in the reality of what it means to live where we do when we do.

A good example is plastic. I will doubtlessly continue to accumulate plastic bags to some extent despite half-hearted attempts to the contrary. I will throw my garbage away in these plastic bags and every time I do I think of the plastic polymers that will someday enter the biosphere, the marine ecosystem, the animals that will ingest them the small piece of havoc I create. I am aware even though I continue to do so. The point is not to change all your actions as much as it is to be able to fess up to them and understand your place in all of it. Personally, I aim towards lessening the damage I own, but I am also beginning to realize it as a symptom of being human. Maybe then the goal is to become less-human? The argument could be made but it is nothing more than an exercise. We are highly conscious creatures, with the ability to think, plan and regret. These qualities can make us innovative, while at the same time lending towards destructive acts and excess. Yes, that is all human and that is all we have at our disposal to bring lessen the guilt we all must feel for the damage we cause to other organisms, (people included).

It would make sense to believe we can be happy this way. The first step might be by really truly understanding your place in the world, then being able to accept it and then being able to love it--the world in all of its flaws and complexities. That might be my goal in life. To really feel that in myself.

This is honest but the cynic in me says, (not audibly), that I sound new age and that I am a pretentious fuck and that I sound like I'm trying to sound like I'm so fucking enlightened... blah, blah, blah. I'm just thinking aloud, (or rather silently through keystroke).