Tuesday, March 07, 2006
On knowing and believing
Jennifer and Adrionna have given the updates on prject changes, and the project has me tired. I am talking to the people, making the connections, and working with the daily buzz of all it takes to make Harmony happen, just as we all are. Amidst all this, I find the need to remember what it is I'm doing- honestly, where my investment is in this project, why I have claimed it, helped to create it, and why I want to see it work. So for now, I offer no updates on the project- just updates on why it is that this project need happen at all because I need to take a moment to remember. For me this class, and every environmental class I take, is not ever just about that class. It is ALWAYS about a larger mission, it is always about piecing together the shambles we are making out of our planet. The first day of class I said the thing special about me was that I feel things really, really hard, and that was no lie. I want to remember Harmony's weight, the weight of our class, and the weight of all of our projects- with hopes that others will believe in their weight and intensity.
I am learning that all environmentalism is is making the case for what we Love. Harmony is an attempt to make an entire community fall in Love with the same thing I have fallen in Love with.
"What is it that I am in Love with?" I must then ask myself if I am expected to make others fall in Love with it as well. And I suppose I would answer by saying, "all that is beautiful and the triumph of that beauty for all time." And since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I have given myself an immense range of options to convince people they must fall in Love with. But now, am I brilliant enough (is Harmony brilliant enough), once I have had them all fall in Love with "all that is beautiful and the triumph of that beauty for all time" to prove that the Earth holds the only guarantee to the protection of their new-found deepest Love?
That is the mission. One will risk all for something she Loves. Many a human would sacrifice her life for a child, a sibling, a mother, money, a culture, wherever it is she has directed her Love. So the quest of the environmentalist is to prove the dependency of whatever one Loves on the Earth.
People give up kidneys for their loved ones. Am I skilled enough, is Harmony brilliant enough, to teach a community that every second the Earth is their kidney donor and each of us are in dire need? Is Harmony clever enough to teach people that it makes more sense to test for their vitals in the air, the water, the soil, than in their own wrist or neck? What does it take to make people see they have never been a closed system?
Science class lied to us all. Our digestive tract is linear, either end open to the environment. Our respiratory system is circular with our environment making up half of the circle. One cannot measure her vitals simply in her wrist and get any sense of her health or what health the future holds for her. One must also incorporate the vitals of the rest of our system- this Earth.
How does one make such a truth be believed by people? People cannot even believe that their heart does in fact provide them with life, until they experience its disfunction. Only then is one able to see, "yes it is this little organ within me that allows for me to exist at all." And then one recognizes the desire to care and look after it. And that is within our own bodies, that is so clsoe to home- perhaps that is the difficulty in seeing. How can one make the truth real without the urgency of near-failure?
It's a funny mission, this quest to make people believe in what they know is true.
Now that we have a location, that is my new goal. Harmony must devise a way to make a community believe in what they know is true. I am looking forward to the joys of planning.
I am learning that all environmentalism is is making the case for what we Love. Harmony is an attempt to make an entire community fall in Love with the same thing I have fallen in Love with.
"What is it that I am in Love with?" I must then ask myself if I am expected to make others fall in Love with it as well. And I suppose I would answer by saying, "all that is beautiful and the triumph of that beauty for all time." And since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I have given myself an immense range of options to convince people they must fall in Love with. But now, am I brilliant enough (is Harmony brilliant enough), once I have had them all fall in Love with "all that is beautiful and the triumph of that beauty for all time" to prove that the Earth holds the only guarantee to the protection of their new-found deepest Love?
That is the mission. One will risk all for something she Loves. Many a human would sacrifice her life for a child, a sibling, a mother, money, a culture, wherever it is she has directed her Love. So the quest of the environmentalist is to prove the dependency of whatever one Loves on the Earth.
People give up kidneys for their loved ones. Am I skilled enough, is Harmony brilliant enough, to teach a community that every second the Earth is their kidney donor and each of us are in dire need? Is Harmony clever enough to teach people that it makes more sense to test for their vitals in the air, the water, the soil, than in their own wrist or neck? What does it take to make people see they have never been a closed system?
Science class lied to us all. Our digestive tract is linear, either end open to the environment. Our respiratory system is circular with our environment making up half of the circle. One cannot measure her vitals simply in her wrist and get any sense of her health or what health the future holds for her. One must also incorporate the vitals of the rest of our system- this Earth.
How does one make such a truth be believed by people? People cannot even believe that their heart does in fact provide them with life, until they experience its disfunction. Only then is one able to see, "yes it is this little organ within me that allows for me to exist at all." And then one recognizes the desire to care and look after it. And that is within our own bodies, that is so clsoe to home- perhaps that is the difficulty in seeing. How can one make the truth real without the urgency of near-failure?
It's a funny mission, this quest to make people believe in what they know is true.
Now that we have a location, that is my new goal. Harmony must devise a way to make a community believe in what they know is true. I am looking forward to the joys of planning.
posted by Megan K McLaurin at 11:23 AM
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