Hope? Or love?
This is what drives me: I grew up on a planet teeming with life, just as did the thousand generations before me.
That life is dying now, being murdered in broad daylight by capitalist sociopaths.
And here we are, the ones trying to stop it.
We hear so much about hope— as in, is there any? This is used as a metric for why we should continue to push back. For why it is worth doing regenerative projects.
But we can’t really know if there is still hope. And when any of us falters on that count it hurts the whole.
That is why I choose love over hope. It says in the Judeo-Christian scriptures “God so loved the world”. I don’t know about that. My thoughts on this don’t require God.
The point is that *I* so love the world that even if all our efforts come to naught I refuse to be part of the gang of thugs killing the biosphere.
If you require hope it implies an attachment to an outcome. In this case, an outcome no one can guarantee.
Love has no such attachment. It means that I am willing to go to great lengths to preserve the biosphere even when my attempts are clearly hopeless.
If you were at the bedside of a dear friend and the prognosis was unclear but they were slowly failing, would you demand hope before giving care and comfort? Or would you simply love them with all your heart?
The alternative is to say “fuck it”, consume as much planet as I can, and then sit on the sidelines getting drunk and watching the world burn.
I can’t do that. So I will weigh each use of petroleum as I find the best substitutes. I will share my space with others because it is a better use of resources. I will eat further down the food web. I will grow what I can on my little patch. I will avoid flying and take public transportation. I will live simply so that others, especially nonhumans, can simply live.
I have no illusions about “saving the Earth”. I just want to do as little harm as possible and to survive. And to be a helper.
A lot of the choices that are known to reduce harm are associated with poverty. That is by capitalist design, reinforced by capitalist propaganda.
They would have you believe that people like me are just poor. That if we became rich we would consume like the rest of the locusts. That we are just jealous.
Be assured, I am not envious of the ruling class. I pity them. How painful it must be to lack a soul…
When people ask me if I have hope, with regard to Earth and our common future, my response is generally "no". Then I go on to explain that, while I don't have "hope", instead I know that we can turn things around. We know what the problems are, and we know what to do. We even have the technology necessary for much of it, and once we walk the path towards "solutions", what we don't know we will learn. What I don't know is IF we will do this. And hope is not going to cut it. Because hope implies doubt. It's a limited vision. What separates "hope" from "knowing" is, what you said: Love. Not that people who hope do not also love, rather Love is a verb. Love is the most powerful force, the creative force, in the Cosmos. What we humans commonly think of as love (friendship, passionate/intimate love) is one thread, one vibration in the energetic tapestry of Love.
“I have no illusions about “saving the Earth”. I just want to do as little harm as possible and to survive. And to be a helper.”
My sentiments as well !