I worry about the planet. I worry about poverty. I worry about freedom. I want the world to be a better place, and I want the planet to be fit healthy and beautiful for my children when they grow up and for their children and so on for many thousands of years. But I also worry that I should just lighten up, stop worrying about it all as the world, nature and people will just sort itself out and be fine.
Let me use an analogy. I love the poem by Robert Frost called “The Road Not Taken” as it has always meant something deep and personal to me. It has made me think that toil and struggle are good and worthy things and that sometimes you need to go for the trickier and harder path as it will be worth the effort in the end and you will get to some promised land, a better place. You know… Martin Luther King’s Last Speech where he exhorts his people that he has seen the promised land:
“We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop… And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight.”
But what if when I get to the end of the path, I come to the raging, roiling bleak expanse of the North Sea and simply have to turn back home back along the same road and the sun has gone in and the weather has turned dark and brooding and bodes a stormy evening.
And what if everyone else has followed the easier path and found a nice pub at the end or been even more easy-living and gone to Newcastle Airport and flown to sunny Mallorca where they are enjoying a drink in the sun, or gone to work and are now making a fortune in hustling, bustling Mumbai or Shanghai or Dubai. Or perhaps they’ve driven along the motorway down to London and got a real job, or taken the ferry and gone to New York for a new life. Who’s the mug then? Is this overgrown path just an overgrown path that leads nowhere, a Road To Nowhere?
Yes, perhaps I should relax and go with the flow. Nah, that’s just not me, but maybe I could be more chilled about some things and maybe there is an easier way to save our planet…
Tags: Blog, Environment & science, ethical, green blog, green way of life, lifestyle, Martin Luther King, Road to Nowhere, Robert Frost, Steenbergs, Steenbergs spices
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I completely tie myself in knots about it, then I start thinking about the ethics of food and what food production does to the planet and become even more confused, it is a wonder that we eat anything.
I think I am currently aligned with Michael Pollan’s ideas, but it is always changing. Ideally we should all be eating fairtrade and organic all the time, but on the other hand everyone should be entitled to healthy affordable food.
Life is a constant compromise and unfortunately some of those compromises make me feel uncomfortable much of the time – it’s hard trying to be good but worth it for our sakes, our children and the the planet. We must always be fair in all our dealings but you’re right in that we must balance cost/affordability in everything we do, but sometimes I think that the burden of excess packaging and increased allergies etc from “bad” food and other products falls onto citizens through taxes and ill health rather than being picked up by those businesses that create the plastic packaging or chemical foods. Also, love your blog and have added it to our blogroll.