Eye of the Storm

Seasons.  There are four of them, and depending upon where you live, maybe you experience all of them in a single day. Or, perhaps there is one season that refuses to leave, in which case, you may have never had the opportunity to experience the annual quarterly event widely known as the ‘changing of the seasons.’   But if you happen to find yourself in the Northeast corridor of the USA, particularly in the September to October time period, you know.  Notwithstanding the fiery debate surrounding Global Warming and Climate Change, and the fact that the weather, which was at one time considered to be a signal of those changing seasons, has now become erratic, not to mention a highly contentious subject among both believers and naysayers alike.  And everyone else in between.   While the calendar still reliably provides the precise date that one season leaves and a new one marches in, the weather itself is no longer exactly in agreement.  If, however, the weather decides to cooperate and square with the calendar, and when the seasonal baton changes hands, the difference from one season to the next is unmistakable. For some, it is the season changes from Summer to Fall and Winter to Spring that are the most celebrated as we bid a not-so-fond farewell to those unpredictable extremes in anticipation of peace and uneventful calm.  Even if it only lasts for a little while.  Notably, from Summer to Fall, after having spent so many days enduring the oppressive humidity and blistering heat to unceremoniously wake up one day to cool, crisp air is a long-awaited relief.  When you open your door on no particular day and walk outside, all doubts are erased as the cool wind kisses your cheeks and causes the hair on your arms and neck to stand upright as your body adjusts to the change in the temperature.  Fall has arrived.  Soon we will see the color of the leaves, once previously green, become vibrant in varying shades of gold and red until they drop off of their tree only to dry out, becoming dull and lifeless.  The trees themselves will eventually become devoid of all color as they brace for a cold Winter that is historically, and in accordance with the calendar, soon to follow. 

Unless, of course, Climate Change and Global Warming are not real in which case ‘cold’ is interpretive while the climate finds itself stuck in the crosshairs of heated negotiations.  Nevertheless, the calendar serves as an outsourced conduit, reliable or not, between Mother Nature and us.  As many have come to realize that the calendar really has only one job which is to report each year holidays, season changes and the phases of the Moon.  Even though it is generally viewed as not much more than a universal baseline guide with pictures and very small print that sells on average for about $14.95.  And thanks to Climate Change, Mother Nature’s seasonal credibility has really become just a perennial footnote on a piece of cheap cardstock that hangs on walls everywhere.  While we have become a modern-day, insufferable society who choose to squander an inordinate amount of precious time complaining and denying the damage, that we are solely responsible for, while we defiantly shift the blame to Mother Nature, an obvious scapegoat.  Henry David Thoreau said, “As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”  And the truth is, regardless of how far we cast the long line of blame, it is not really Mother Nature who has reneged on her promises in more ways than we can count.  Pollution, as we know it, is defined as deterioration, contamination and a general misuse of the environment to the point that it becomes irreversibly damaged and unsalvageable in many places.  We know that Global Warming is a by-product, an unfortunate side effect of the changes in the climate that are due in large part to human activities.   Now that idea is wildly unpopular among some even though it is neither a new revelation nor is it in any way based on presumption.  Really, it is just another example of common sense that is heavily disputed and wholly ignored by the naysayers, otherwise known as ‘those who choose to ignore and/or dispute proven facts.’  The environmental deterioration that we are all bearing witness to is undeniably a direct result of cause and effect.  That is to say that it is our behaviors and mistreatment of the planet that have been the cause, and the effect is Global Warming.  And if that uncomplicated fact is true, then Henry David Thoreau had it right when he said, “Things do not change; we change.”  With the result of those changes proving to be catastrophic.  But we also know that pollution can take many forms, some that you can see clearly while others are elusive and not as obvious to the naked eye.  Because it is human activities and behaviors that, over time, have become the pollutant and have disrupted and compromised the survival of all living and non-living things which can be summarized as pretty much everything.  We can simplify all of the damage and give it the label of ‘pollution’ that has been formed by garbage, or we can just call it what it is which is a gross deficiency in human behavior.  And unless that changes, nothing will change while optimism is waning almost as quickly as the climate and changing weather patterns.

Because as a collective society we have proven that we cannot have nice things, and we can corrupt and pollute just about anything.  Are we the destroyed or the destroyers, the victims or the perpetrators, the advocates or the accomplices?  The problem is, like the calendar to the weather, our claims do not square with our actions.  Henry David Thoreau is quoted as having said, “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”  And that is exactly the point.  Even while evidence generally always points to the truth, what is there and what you see are oftentimes not the same thing.  Global Warming is one of those things primarily due in large part to personal political preferences.  We do not need to be told explicitly what someone’s political preference is.  All we need to know is where they stand on Global Warming, mask-wearing, or vaccines, to name a few, to know which political party flag flies within their heart.  Mask wearing, for example, shouldn’t really be a political hot potato, but it is.  When given the chance and if we try hard enough, we can find many ways to pollute the environment, blur reality and muddy the water.   While we endeavor to complicate simple things in our ongoing quests to be right, the only thing that we repeatedly prove is that we are wrong.  It is convenient and interesting how mask-wearing, in particular, quickly went from being a life-saving, protective piece of fabric that covers the mouth and a nose to being an obstructive nuisance that serves no real purpose other than apparent oxygen deprivation.   We like to throw into the dogpile a blend of misunderstood, centuries-old Constitutional Rights, along with their companion and seemingly malleable amendments, that are allegedly being violated when, in reality, we just skimmed through them in a quick internet search, cherrypicked the parts that suit our current narrative and then regurgitate them because they will undoubtedly make us sound informed and knowledgeable on social media.  And who knows, at this rate maybe we can pick up a few more followers along the way.  Because pollution impacts the environment in more ways than one.  It starts at the point of incubation in our minds and festers like a bad infection until it has nowhere else to go but out and into the universe where it spreads like wildfire or maybe even an uncontained pandemic-like disease.  And those behaviors, like the weather, have not improved, rather they have worsened, throughout the years.  Warnings be damned.   Henry David Thoreau said, “Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.”  And right, wrong or with indifference, we have certainly lived our beliefs and have turned the world around and upside down, only not necessarily in a good way because we are not right, rather we are righteous, and have purposefully chosen to not heed the many warnings, literal smoke signals and waving red flags.

But it takes time to see the effects of what long-term neglect and contamination look like.  The results of those behaviors are subtle and do not always appear immediately, and yet when they do appear, they are undeniable.  We don’t need to see images of polar bears walking around on dry dirt in the Arctic, unmasked people at a crowded store or garbage on the side of the road to know that is true. If pollution is generally caused by contamination, deterioration and misuse, then it is logical to deduce that those same corrosive effects can be found in any environment that provides a safe harbor for a willing host.  Generationally, and over time, we have become the source, the human pollutants, the willing hosts who have mutated while we continuously pass down ill-conceived behaviors that spread faster than an uncontained forest fire.  And through it all, there is one thing to which we can all probably agree, and that is that we will likely never be able to agree.  That’s not pessimism, rather, it is reality and it is true.  Whether or not we choose to admit it is about as much of the point as using the contents of someone’s glass as a useful or significant measurement of their mental and/or emotional state.  A half-full or half-empty glass is barely an objective barometer, yet it is an overused and preferred means of summarizing those with whom we disagree.  As we are hard at work deepening, rather than fusing, already wide and ever-present polarities, creating irreparable chasms that may have started off separating differing ideas but have evolved into an apoplectic and disconcerting existence.   

Because we know that pollution goes well beyond scattered garbage and poor air quality, and we stopped recycling any optimistic ancestral behaviors years ago.  Periods of time gone by when opening one’s mouth to speak wasn’t always considered to be a leading contributor towards the bad quality of the air.  When the strength of the human chain was built out of a stronger substance thereby making it harder to break.  And yet, the years gone by and the present day do have one thing in common and that is that we have always only been as strong as our weakest links.  In knowing all of that and assuming it to be true, then it must also be true that we cannot remedy the whole chain until the faulty parts are made to be more durable and not so easily breakable.   As the collective society, we represent the weakened and now fragile links of what was previously considered to be a strong and proud human chain.  And some, who are on a fool’s errand, will claim to want to fix the chain even while knowing that the manufactured parts are defective, and you cannot mend something that thrives on being broken.  In anger and righteousness, we are knowingly creating the untethered chaos and the disturbances that are fueling the once previously contained fire as we intentionally continue to break, not mend, the chain.   And we know that nothing creates chaos, separates us further and exposes our ever-present weaknesses more than when we find ourselves in the throes of another kind of season and that is election season.

Elections are no longer about a single day rather they are now considered to be a whole season because they never seem to end.  The current election season that we find ourselves in is consumed with all of the same turbulence that we have come to expect when there is a heightened strain of opposition afoot.  However, this one has an added twister, a far-reaching, tornado-like storm that is widespread and overwhelmingly stretches from coast to coast while simultaneously remaining extraordinarily localized.  Tensions are high and continue to rise while deeply-rooted emotions have reached the surface and are boiling over.  There is an eye to this particular storm that is bringing out large groups of people in droves to add their voice to the noise that is currently at a shrilled decibel.   Of course, elections are always combative, that is not new.  What is new are the current issues at stake that impact a very specific segment of the voting population on a visceral level, exposing their most vulnerable nerve, and that is their children.  Consequently, unlike a forecasted and predicted weather disturbance, the eye of this storm has landed in the most unpredictable of places and that is schools everywhere making these elections much more personal for many people.  Members of Boards of Education are elected officials who make decisions that relate to school budgets, curriculum, and the health and safety of all of the children and staff who walk through the halls of the schools which invariably impacts the community as a whole.   And herein lies the problem and what separates this election season from others.  Because like most things, while the complexities of the issues are debatable with answers that clearly lie within the hearts and eyes of their beholder, in national elections, the average person does not personally know the candidates.  However, elections involving Board of Education candidates means that we will be voting for people who we do know.  During this highly contentious battle for a literal seat at the Board of Education table, inevitable sparring will ensue among friends, neighbors and the parents of our children’s classmates.  Parents who we will later probably find ourselves standing next to at a school sporting event or dodging in the supermarket where we will all play an impromptu game of hide and seek.  Because just by giving voice to our opinions, we have either knowingly or unwittingly put on full display our political views which is, right, wrong or indifferent, a measured referendum on who we really are and what we believe in.   As a result, and while we are hiding behind a carefully constructed pyramid of toilet paper at the supermarket, we quickly come to an unspoken and mutual understanding.  We simply cannot be friends with anyone whose views are so vastly unaligned with our own, preferring to attach ourselves to those more likeminded people who agree with us. 

Seasons.  Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.  Maybe you experience any or all of them during our continual trips around the Sun.  Maybe you have a favorite season and maybe you don’t.  Either way, we know that seasons represent changes that will come with or without our consent.  As each season stops, a new one begins, and that’s how the story goes.  Henry David Thoreau said, “So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run.”  And maybe that’s the reckoning that we desperately need.  Because for all the changes that seasons bring, the one thing that continuously proves to be unchanging is our minds.  With vengeful convictions and with closed minds, the chasm of defiance and righteousness will only expand.  As we embrace conformity, rather than autonomy, in the midst of opposition while we confuse opportunities and rights with freedom and privilege.  In the end, we know that Global Warming and Climate Change are not really about the weather.  We know that mask-wearing and vaccines are not a plot designed to violate any rights that have been outlined within the pages of the Constitution, elections are not about one person and seasons do not begin and end on a single day just because the calendar tells us so.  And while our glasses may be full or empty or reach an arbitrary midway point that could go either way, it is ultimately about us.  We can continue to be the unabating and relentless land storms that leave a path of destruction in our wake, or we can open our ears and eyes and endeavor to not just hear, but listen and to not just look, but see.  Only when we understand that there is a difference between those distinctly unequal ideas will we find our way back to the path that leads to peace and uneventful calm.

DISCLAIMER:  All quotes were found on everydaypower.com and are understood to be true statements referenced for the purpose of illustrating a point.  Quotes have been bolded and italicized to provide a delineation from the author’s perspective.