Through the Doors of Doubt

     
      “I am only one, but still I am one.  I cannot do everything, but still I can do something.  And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.”      -- Helen Keller


​     Several months ago, I was sitting in our local martial arts studio during my son’s class reading Rob Hopkin’s The Transition Handbook.  I don’t recall exactly what page I was reading, but somehow the Sensei and director of the studio, who was sitting nearby, managed to pick up something in large print that caused him to fix a weighted stare on me.  Perhaps what he read was the heading for Chapter 5, “How Peak Oil and Climate Change Effect Us: Post-petroleum Stress Disorder.”
     ​“Do you think we can move past oil?” he asked. ​
     “We have to,” I responded. ​
     “I know we have to,” he said, “but can we?”
     I don’t think I said anything after that, though I do remember thinking, “I’m glad you know.”   
     In those days, I was grateful to encounter anyone who “knew,” but I think the main reason that snippet of conversation lingers is because of the honesty of the question and the doubt and disbelief that seemed to suspend themselves in silent parentheses.  The truth is I have no idea what the Sensei was actually thinking and it is entirely possible that I was projecting my own doubt and disbelief all over him.  I had been living the past several months in a constant state of agitation and information overload and it is likely that I was projecting that all over everyone, bouncing my inner life off people like some sort of over-stimulated child in a mirrored funhouse.  
     The task I had set myself during the depressingly warm winter was to bone up on the facts and attempt to fix the kaleidoscope of issues we face into one static image.  I was willing, in fact desperate, to discern the difference between false hope and realistic assessments, to sort through the various shades of apathy and despair, to find a way forward. I gathered statistics on the effects of climate change, studied peak oil predictions, and assembled in my mind the inescapable maze those two factors create.  If we keep burning fossils fuels we will continue to heat up the planet, but, the good news is we are running out of fossil fuels. Of course there is the little problem that America does not run on Dunkin’, as some might have you believe, but on fossils fuels. The American supermachine we are all a part of could, in fact, collapse without them.  
     I picked up some books on economics as well, starting with Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine.  That catechism of how global economic theory can and has devastated entire populations makes picking one’s way through Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games feel like a walk in the park.  While Klein’s book is a painful economic and political assessment of what is and has been, Charles Eisenstein offers a vision of what might be in his book Sacred Economics. I need people like Eisenstien, because while I can spend long afternoons, in fact entire seasons, exploring the edges of despair, I can’t stay there.  I have children.  And the same fierce love that might cause me to throw my body in front of a moving bus rather than have it hit them also motivates my determined efforts to save the future.
     Alright, I admit it, this phrase “save the future” is a bit too heroic. It indicates a misguided impression of my own agency and brings to mind images of a raging toddler swinging her arms wildly in the air while an older sibling keeps her at bay by placing a hand on her forehead.  I know that I don’t have the power to re-freeze melting icecaps or ebb the rising of the seas, but I do have the power to look squarely at the truth and act accordingly.  The truth is that our planet is sick and that sickness will effect us all. Call it what you like, global warming or climate change -- a phrase that was never intended as a euphemism but rather as a statement of fact -- the planet we are living on is mutating. Entire species are dying off, rivers are drying up, powerful storms and earthquakes are wreaking havoc, the oceans are choking in pollution, and tiny island countries are drowning while Texas is burning.  In the meantime, we are all still very much alive. The living can’t help but tinker, they have to spend their days doing something. ​
     My something was to link in to The Coffee Party, Occupy, 350.org and the local Transition movement in search of some company and some answers, which made me feel less lonely but no less overwhelmed.  It was becoming clear that this self-proclaimed leaderless movement, designed to counter destructive political powers, was in fact in need of leaders.  Not just one or two dynamic enlightened personalities but lots of leaders – leaders in every town, on every street corner.  
     I am not a leader.  Sure, after nearly 16 years of parenting three children I have reluctantly, painstakingly and rather belatedly polished some leader-like skills, but I am as much a product of place as the rest. As the youngest of five children for 15 years (when the sixth child came along) my most polished skills include the fine arts of tagging along, empathizing and peacemaking.  Like many children from large families, the greatest power I possess is the power to bear my pain in silence.  During these days when many of us are hearing a collective call for healing, both of the earth and ourselves, that power I thought I had is starting to look like a liability. 
     In a rare conversation about politics that I recently had with my eldest sister, I was struck by a statement she made about President Obama.  In the telling, I’m not interested in swaying public opinion, in fact I was expressing my doubts about the president.  She responded by saying, “Well, yes, it is true that he can’t separate himself from the beast.” For her, that beast is not only the powers that be, but also the urge to project a reality that is prettier than the one we are living.  Perhaps that’s true for us all?  Despite compelling evidence that we must change the way we’re living, maybe we can’t because we are all having trouble separating ourselves from the beast. We love the beast. We love the American supermachine.  We love our cars, our cities, our plastic bags, our styrofoam cups. We love our packaged foods, our heated homes, our electric appliances. We love America’s power and influence. We love the American way of life. 
     I am now certain that the American way of life is very much up for debate.  I believe that while the beast itself, the American supermachine, cannot be slain it can be transformed if we simply remember to love the things we’ve taken for granted. I also believe that this transformation, this remembering to love that which we’ve forgotten, can lead to a collective power that can be harvested and directed. Energy habits can be changed, pollution can cease and our ravaging of the earth can desist. To do this, it isn’t necessary to change the things we love, only to decide which of those things is most important today.
     For some time I’ve been convinced that, in order to “save the future,” I needed to undergo some profound personal transformation.  But with every attempt to do so, I've found that I remain exactly as I have always been – a kindhearted tag-along with a stubborn longing for peace.  But maybe that’s really all that is needed.  It is entirely possible that all that is needed is for each of us to act on the passions we’ve always possessed, to be the people we've always been, only more so. And while there is no guarantee that we can save the future for our children, we can, each of us, commit to some small project that leads to a change in our behaviors.  In so doing, we shed our disbelief and donate our energies to the larger universe.   If nothing else, through the doing, we can make it clear to our children that we understood the perilous state of their future world and that we loved them enough to try to do something about it.
     So this is the thing I’m going to do.  I’ve decided to turn my obsession about plastic bags into a cause. Plastic bags?  You may be thinking, as I sometimes do, how ridiculous to obsess about plastic bags when there are so many causes to choose from.  How about we end the fossil fuel era; dismantle corporate rule of our democracy; protect women’s rights and everyone’s civil liberties; shine a harsh light on American war making; defend Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security; protect our public schools; curtail the privatization of our prisons; eradicate prejudice and social injustice; protect the animals.  The list goes on and on and on. But, like Helen Keller, I have to admit that I am only one and I cannot do everything, but I can do something.  After the preceding list, the little project I’ve chosen is likely to appear quite benign.  I am working with others in our area (who, thankfully, possess greater action and leadership skills than I do) to join cities and townships around the globe in passing an ordinance to ban single-use plastic bags in our coastal city.
     Painless enough? Yet with this little effort we can put in motion a tangible change.  We can clear our streets, our forests, our oceans of all that plastic riff-raff. In effect, what we will be doing is removing the outer layer of a problem so that we might see more clearly what has been concealed inside. Surely, all we have to do is educate ourselves about the devastating effects of plastic bags on the environment.  Throw in a little more education on the pending depletion of fossil fuels needed to make those bags.  Link that to any mistaken belief that plastic bags are harmless and then stop using them.  The strongest argument I have heard so far against moving past single-use plastic bags, especially those at the grocery store, is the matter of convenience.  But how important can convenience really be in relation to the larger picture?  In all honesty, maybe moving past single-use plastic bags is about more than convenience.  Maybe it’s about ownership of the problem, changing habits, doing something that transforms the doer into an active witness and steward. That’s the part I’m interested in, because every time I've worked to change my perception of an existing paradigm and, more importantly, to change my behavior, I can feel myself moving through the doors of doubt.
     Recently, I was given quite a stunning living example of the power of moving through the doors of doubt. The martial arts studio my son attends had been invited to give a demonstration at an outdoor school fundraiser.  The demonstration was impressive. All those martial artists moving together through their collective routines created a palpable energy that drew a good-sized crowd.  After the performance, the Sensei invited the uninitiated to break a board.  He precluded the invitation with an impressive board-breaking stint of his own and a convincing assertion that anyone can break a board if they quiet the inner voice that tells them they can’t.  What followed was a veritable martial arts baptism, with skinny little boys, petite girls in flowered dresses, teenagers, middle-aged men and women (including myself) all stepping up to break a board and all succeeding. I will be bold and say that we experienced a collective paradigm shift. That we all walked away with a different sense of ourselves and a primal commitment to test our assumptions about what can and cannot be done. As we move forward with our little project, we are likely to find ourselves bumping up against resistance, denial and doubt.  When that happens, I intend to remember that I can break a board.