The prevailing winds certainly don’t look good these days and they’ve literally been sucking the oxygen out of other important issues. Why this is happening can be stated in one word: Trump. But one thing about winds. They are very unpredictable. That actually gives me hope we might see the winds of change soon.
I haven’t been posting much lately. I decided to take a long hiatus. Part of my motivation for doing this was the election. You see, I was getting drawn in to the political vortex so easy to get sucked in to here at Daily Kos. I don’t like to get involved with the he said/she said political cat fights that happen during a campaign. I view it as a big waste of time. I therefore took the time during the heat of the campaign to work on my own personal writings. I got a lot accomplished. I didn’t envision Trump would get elected.
The last time I was posting here a lot I was trying to accomplish many things simultaneously. I was the coordinator of Seattle and Puget Sound Kossacks. Then I took on the volunteer position of Daily Kos Washington State Community Builder. In connection with that role I established a Washington State Open Thread posting current events pertaining the the Pacific Northwest every Sunday. I thought I could do all this and still continue to keep the issue of climate change front and center. I thought this in part because I’d assumed I’d get the help and assistance from some key people. For various reasons, probably largely do to my own shortcomings, that did not materialize. As a result, I soon realized I was not going to be able to do this.
I therefore began reevaluating where I was at and where I wanted to go. I began reflecting on a time in my past with similar parallels.
Please allow me the liberty of reposting what I previously wrote about this past similar situation.
My wife and I had been trying to achieve a long-term goal of our own about 25 years ago. That goal was to live overseas.
When we first set out to achieve this goal, we made a few miscalculations and missteps. We did not fully appreciate all the little things needing to be done on a day by day basis. For a while we kept giving lip service to it. One day it dawned on us while shopping we were actually doing many things on a day to day basis that were taking us away from our stated desire to move and live overseas. We sat down again and seriously examined our actions and vowed to focus our attention without waiver to its achievement.
After this serious discussion we constantly reminded ourselves to put the target of living overseas first and foremost in our thinking so our every action would directly lead to its accomplishment. Once we did this our day to day life became an eye-opening experience.
It was amazing how many times we caught ourselves getting ready to do something that not only wouldn’t get us closer but actually would move us further away. Take, for instance, in the area of our finances. We had set a goal of having the money to afford to travel overseas for one year. Yet numerous times we caught ourselves on the verge of purchasing a piece of furniture or household item that made no sense to purchase if we were serious about leaving the country. Sometimes it was hard to forego the item. We knew it would mean short-term sacrifice or inconvenience. Hold on, better not buy that piece of furniture even though it’s on sale. Makes no sense if we’re going overseas. Oops – Let’s pull back on going to that expensive show and fancy restaurant this Friday night. It would just blow the savings plan for our upcoming trip. These little day to day decisions meant some short-term sacrifice and inconvenience but were necessary to achieve the long-term target.
Our personal purchases and activity choices were not the only areas where we felt unease. Here we were in our early forties, happily married living in a wonderful newly remodeled home in Seattle. We were in successful careers and surrounded by wonderful friends. Life was good.
We were getting ready to give all this up, strap on 15 pound backpacks and go off into the wild blue yonder without any guarantee of ultimate destination or employment. Many of our friends called us crazy. “How could we chuck it all and just take off? What about our security and future?”, they said. It was unsettling to say the least as major change can be. But we did not allow ourselves to be deterred.
Well, to make a long story short, the one year of travel turned into fifteen years of overseas living. We landed excellent jobs in three different countries (Taiwan, Thailand and Burma). Our lives were enriched beyond belief. Our friends no longer called us crazy but instead indicated how lucky we were. The short-term sacrifices had paid off and a long-term dream with multiple benefits had been realized.
I view my decision to pull back from the various auxiliary duties I had taken on with Daily Kos in the same way. I was doing things that were taking me further away from my stated goal. I wanted to return to writing about climate change. It turned out to be a very good decision.
Now I’m once again ready to start posting regularly. This time, hopefully, I won’t get sidetracked because you see, with the issue of climate change, I can’t afford to get sidetracked. There isn’t time for any sidetracking. Anyone who truly cares about climate change, who truly doesn’t deny the problem and its severity realizes time is of the essence.
As Naomi Klein says in her latest book, This Changes Everything:
“the ‘this’ in This Changes Everything is climate change. … And what we mean by that is that climate change, if we don’t change course, if we don’t change our political and economic system, is going to change everything about our physical world. …That’s the road we are on. We can get off that road, but we’re now so far along it, we’ve put off the crucial policies for so long, that now we can’t do it gradually. … (It)requires such a radical departure from the kind of political and economic system we have right now that we pretty much have to change everything.”
Yes, Naomi is right. And when she wrote those words she wasn’t envisioning a climate denying Trump administration.
But Trump and his administration are nothing more than a bunch of ignoramuses on the issue and deserve the same attention and credence one gives jokesters, pranksters or ingrates. They are a joke and deserve to be made relentlessly fun of for their environment positions. They should be, no must be, considered obsolete and not needed for reference when it comes to climate change. By ignoring them and ridiculing them at every juncture and focusing at the state and local level we can make them look foolish and render them impotent. It will take a change of focus, discipline and sustained effort.
Actually, we’ve been in a pretty powerful environmental shit creek well before Trump. The truth is the currents just got swifter and the water a whole lot stinkier because he got elected. But that does not stop the winds of change.
I’m not one to approach climate change from a gloom and doom, depressing perspective. I like insightful levity and sincerely believe there is reason for, if not optimism then hope, because the changes we need to make can really be boiled down to doing one thing. We must utilize the sun to the fullest extent possible. It’s really that simple.
There have always been powerful forces standing in the way of the winds of change. They come primarily from three different groups.
Gatekeepers
A gatekeeper’s purpose is always the same: to control information, block change and hold on to their power and vested interests. They act as status quo security guards, blocking outsiders from infiltrating their ranks or changing the system. Their job is
a) telling you what to think,
b) telling you what to do and
c) telling you which choices you have.
Cynics
Cynics are expert pessimists. Their argument can be boiled down to one succinct sentence: Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.
They stand ready to give all kinds of reasons why it won’t work. They tell you everything they think is wrong with your ideas.
Silver-Bullet Types
Silver-bullet technocratic scientific types are “we’ll solve climate change so “don’t worry about it” people. There is always a new innovation on the horizon promising inexhaustible cheap energy. There is no reason to worry. We are at the cusp of climate change’s resolution.
But even they cannot stop the winds of change unless we let them. And I refuse to let any of their arguments dissuade me. I’m ready to reemerge from my forced blogging hibernation.. I’m ready to once again launch my Holy Shitters series posting every S.H.I.T. (so happy its Thursday) addressing all the many psychological aspects of climate change and the hope and humor contained within the issue.
You see, I’m Poop John the First, founder of the Church of the Holy Shitters and I’m humorously serious about addressing the issue. Our Church’s goal is not to ask you for money. We have no plans to do that. We’re not that kind of Church. Our goal is nothing less than to cause the issue of climate change to go viral. And when the chances of the Church of the Holy Shitters succeeding in doing so, in my estimation, is slightly higher than a snowball’s chance in hell you can see
why we need a new religion to cause the winds of change we need.
Religion is the glue that binds a group of people together. It is the moral framework from which a person judges the world. It is the hub in their wheel of existence. It provides them a way to maintain long-term attention to the principles by which to live in the face of life’s short-term distractions. Religion provides a person with a path to travel in their desire to lead a good life.
Our modern life screams out for a new kind of religion offering a new glue to bind people together, a new moral framework from which to judge and a new hub in their wheel of existence. This new religion needs to focus exclusively on our physical existence. It must be secular in nature and concern itself with our life on this Earth and our relationship with it.
This religion is needed for us to keep hope alive in our efforts to combat climate change. So I ask you to join our Church.
Help us
to create the winds of change
and change the
The Church of the Holy Shitters will post articles on our holy S.H.I.T. day ( So Happy It's Thursday) Hoping to add some humor, provoke thought, spark debate, deepen understanding, and shed some light on the fecal side.
Remember: "If we really want to straighten out all this crap we really need to think about shit." ( Shitbit by Poop John the First of the Church of the Holy Shitters )
A secular environmental religion, scientifically based, with a focus on the psychology of it all. Our ego is the culprit when it comes to dealing with climate change. We cannot save the planet. We can only save ourselves. Our current egotistical self-perception makes that prospect a dubious one at best. Meekness, humility and a realization that our shit does stink, guides us on our path to true sustainable living and climate equilibrium.
Learn more about the Church of the Holy Shitters here.
Cross posted at holyshitters.com/...;