The last 10 years (especially the last 653 days) in the United States have been about so much more than this.

But the Earth, the only planet we have to call home, is the core from which everything flows. The water, the air, the food, the materials we take for granted every single day… are all gifts of the highest magnitude, because they sustain and enrich life.

These things are not inexhaustible. And we are not entitled to them. Somewhere along the way, we gained a little intelligence as a species, and decided “This is all mine.” We decided that separating ourselves from the world made more sense than living with it, and working in it, and being a part of it.

The ocean, the rivers, the lakes, the soil, the atmosphere, the grass that’s grazed, the water we drink, the food our children eat: these things are deeply, inexorably connected. No amount of wishing or wordplay will change this fact. What we do matters, for good and for bad.

We are not entitled to the bounty of the Earth. Mother Nature owes you nothing.

And yet she has given us everything.

Our response has been “I want more.” We style ourselves the dominant species, and thus survey the domain of the planet. Our drive to survive is so strong, that coupled with our intelligence, it creates monsters of us both obvious and quiet.

Without

– temperance

– wisdom

– curiosity

– empathy

– tolerance

survival itself becomes a weapon. Anyone who has ever told you these are weaknesses is lying or delusional.

They are the greatest strengths of humanity. They are the pillars of integrity and progress.

Without these guardrails, our need to survive (and to understand everything in turn), makes us greedy almost beyond repair. Without these guardrails, we remain as children.

Weapons of war survive the sands of time far longer in our shared archeological record, because metalworking provided advantages in weaponry. But the artifacts of the home, of trade, of peace, of art, and of science are far more susceptible to decay. So what we see looking down at our feet, or with the help of a shovel, is a history dominated by conflict.

And yet every other clue in the entire collection, the big-picture history of our species, points to cooperation as the foundation of our success. Cooperation, not conflict, is what we should see when we look behind us.

Conflict is a choice. Cooperation is a ground state.

The voice of pure survival is powerful. It is as seductive as it is comforting. It convinces you that the easy way is indeed possible, and in fact preferable. It says “You need this. You deserve this. Keep it. Hide it. It’s yours.”

It is the voice that justifies the hoarding of wealth and resources while people suffer.

It justifies the destruction of land, forests, water, animals, and humans in the name of profit.

It justifies pollution, sickness, and disease for the sake of success and power.

It justifies averting your gaze from your persecuted neighbor.

It justifies abusing, belittling, and exploiting women.

It justifies destroying children in the name of righteousness.

It justifies the targeting, terrorizing, incarceration, and execution of anyone different enough to be noticeable.

It justifies turning the temple into a field of commerce and a nest of vipers.

It justifies the dismantling of everything good so that it can be replaced with everything holy.

It justifies borrowing from the future until you’re completely insolvent.

Giving in to that voice is where true weakness lies. Following this voice is a submission of your will to an instinctual drive that does not discriminate, nor celebrate, nor imagine. This voice does not know the difference between “doing good for people” and “doing right by people”.

Weakness is not saying “I care”. Weakness is saying “I only care about myself”.

Either everything is sacred, or nothing is. That’s the line I choose to draw. There is no possible universe in which my heart allows me to live a different way. Once you start arbitrarily marking things as holy, to the point of exclusion, you’ve already started down the path of destruction.

Either everything is sacred, or nothing is.

If you choose to draw a circle around a few things and call it “sacred”, then you’ve made your choice. It’s no different than extolling the virtues of your moral high ground by saying “I refuse to choose sides”. That’s still a choice. And in both cases, you’ve chosen yourself.

We need more people in the world who choose to care about something other than their own ego.

If you’re looking for the thing that needs boundaries, it’s tolerance. Tolerance, by definition, requires boundaries in order to remain “tolerance”. You cannot create an environment of peace by giving equal voice to hatred. We lost the plot on this one over the last decade.

“But what about me?” says the racial supremacist. Says the anti-woman, anti-child ideologue. Says the hateful religious. Says the hyper-capitalist as they burn everything to the ground. Says the political opportunist. Says the person who values situational peace at the expense of necessary boundaries. Says the citizen who refuses to let go of their personal anger.

“But what about me?” What about you? There is no room for you here. There never should have been. Don’t get me wrong, we’ll always struggle with these things. But they need to be shut out in the cold. It needs to be made clear, now more than ever:

Sacred: everything.

Tolerance: boundaries.

We also need to reject the reactionary gaslighting that arises in response to the efforts of justice, conservation, cooperation, equality, and progress. Calling those things weakness, and labeling those things hatred, and aligning those things with discrimination, is extremely cheap and basic propaganda. Be insulted that they were ever weaponized against you. We’ve already fought devastating wars over this. We have, in fact, seen this movie before.

Rights are not pie. More for them does not mean less for you.

When everyone wins, everyone wins. It is that simple. If you think everyone gaining the intrinsic respect of rights and the bounties of progress means you lose something, you’ve been lied to. And whoever’s doing the lying is, in some way, stealing from you. Guaranteed.

All humans deserve equal rights.

Humans are part of the Earth.

And while rights are not pie (limited or exhaustible), the body of the Earth is.

We stand at the crossroads of a future, one which I’m convinced rests upon the belief that either everything is sacred, or nothing is. We either destroy the body of the Earth over generations, and continue to allow ourselves the luxury of weakness, or we decide that leaving a better world to future generations is worth more than feeling comfortable and justified.

Everything else that matters flows from this.

Even before I could walk, both of my parents would tell me to “listen to that still, small voice inside you”. Some of you get the reference. But regardless of the path I’ve chosen to follow, I’ve never stopped listening.

I have a tendency to complicate things with words, to get hung up on concepts and ontology, to get too philosophical. Maybe even this piece is obfuscating my core point. In that case, here it is:

A vote for the Earth is a vote for everything.

It is possible for everyone to gain from this. In this approach, abundance becomes manifold. In this space, the only internal threats are imagined ones. And this does not sacrifice any necessary amount of defense or tactical reality.

As we’ve seen, it takes an enormous amount of effort to overcome the driving force of pure survival, distilled greed, and compounded hatred. And things are far from over.

But for everyone who kept telling others (and themselves) “keep fighting the good fight”, it’s nice to have the light shine down on you once in awhile, isn’t it?

Especially for those who aren’t here with us to witness it.

Keep listening to your small voice, and keep your eyes on the horizon. You will hear what matters, and you will see the same sun set and rise over all.

original post: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18fTcLz4JB