“So much of our manufactured environment testifies to carelessness.”
I had a really hard time today not feeling disgusted with everything human-related. I passed through several train stations, airports, and in-betweens, and everywhere I looked was messy, greedy, thoughtless humanity. Including in myself.
It took me all day to come back around to trying — trying! — to turn disgust into empathy. Everybody’s just making it up as we go. A lot of people inherit problems and do the best they can with them. Others inherit power, and often do their worst. Other people exist in between, navigating complex structures with incomplete training.
(None of this is disgust re: service industry people; everybody working at the airport is just trying to do their job and I appreciate everyone who has to be somewhere for work and put up with everybody else.)
Anyway. I’m having a bad brain time. But I’m trying my best to practice what I’ve learned about nudging uselessly-grim thoughts toward something helpful. Yeah, it’s correct to notice that humanity has made a fucked up mess of this whole beautiful planet; but there are a lot of ways to proceed from that observation.
People need support, resources, and infrastructure. There are a lot of people suffering and struggling under capitalism, and it takes a toll that expresses itself in lots of ways. We’re in this thing together.
Moreover, my imbalanced personal disgust doesn’t need to be projected onto others. Nobody deserves that.
And whether it’s worth it or not, I did get to observe the ocean-foam gathering of clouds from above, and the merciless gold of a satisfied sun. Thanks to all this human mess. I just want us to arrange things more peacefully and respectfully.
