Common Sense & A Practical Eye

I was so sure it wouldn’t happen to me. I was so sure I would never lose my sense of identity, but it is happening, despite all the reflective analysis that I was so certain would insolate my core and guarantee my escape. If you noticed the lull in blog-writing, it is because I am anxious. Very anxious about a world of such violence and disorder coupled with increasing anxiety about who I am.

Not that anyone would care? It is self-centered for me to even discuss it, but perhaps there is therapy for me in this discussion, and perhaps in my wild rants a few hidden dregs that will provide balm for others. My discouragement and loss of identity seems linked to passions that change daily without forewarning. I had such a passion for writing. MD (Middle Daughter) even bought me a Publisher’s Guide cause she knew I had a book that needed to be circulated as passionately as it was written. But, without cause, without notes from demeaning arrogant editors, that passion died. That was part of my identity that suddenly exited without warning.

And then there is my passion for saving the children that is suddenly weakening, not because I care less, but because I feel so helpless. With a government focused on tagging ducks, fish, and other mammals and registering guns, I am forced to accept defeat. The defeat that tracking children is not a priority now, and sadly never will be. Children will continue to disappear at an even faster rate while we celebrate some sea creatures that we have successfully tracked and through tagging now know that they have returned to an original nesting site. And we will continue to ignore that crimes of violence are committed with legally registered firearms, more often than not.

And my passion for the environment is being crushed by the heated ongoing discussions of government-based solutions. Some lay person said that we are too selfish a people to turn global warming around. And I have to agree with them. We all want privacy. We want sprawling bungalows with 6 – 10 bedrooms for each of us to live individually or as couples. We do not want to share our cars, our houses, our garages, or our lives. We want all trees that are non-symmetrical removed. We want paved drives and flood lights and swimming pools and Jacuzzi’s and every other indulgence while the heart of the beasts of our habitat lap up energy for all those things. We want rolling lawns that are herbicided and insecticided with whatever toxic concoctions that will do the job. We want our snacks packaged solidly in minute amounts like 2 teaspoons of sugar, 2 tablespoons of cream, 4 tablespoons of yogurt, and drink cartons that contain no more than a sip. And if we open all these things and dump the contents on the table in one pile and stack the packaging in another, we look like we are about as serious about conservation as someone secretly sinking oil tankers in the ocean to dispose of them. So that part of me that cared so much is weakening as well. (Are you listening, Al Gore?)

It is not aging that is weakening my passions. It is something bigger than that. Something the Kyoto agreement cannot even make a dent in. Maybe if we could just get past the selfishness and pre-disposed conviction of entitlement in all things, we could look at all of this with common sense and a practical eye. I think, in fact I am quite certain, that all of us, could dismiss our despair and anxiety and solidly reclaim our identity in that kind of world.