Ok, so I'm in the shower, lather, rinse, repeat and suddenly my mind has wandered into my Anish classes and the phrase "All life is sacred." Simple concept, no? Seems easy enough to follow--if all life is sacred, it's worthy of respect and will be treated as holy. Most people have an idea somewhere in their head that life is valuable (that's a loaded word if I ever saw one), that it has meaning, that life itself is worth something. (Again, what's with all the money terminology?) BUT, imagine for a moment, if you will, a world where everyone is taught from the cradle that ALL life is sacred, and then they practise that throughout their life. They don't just mouth it as an idle platitude, they live it, everyday.
--No more child abuse or molestation, abandonment or neglect
--No more abortion. There would be no need. If all life was sacred but you didn't want the child (dissonance there, I know), then you could give it up safely for adoption because someone would take care of it and do a good job.
--No more rape. If every man and woman looked at each other as a sacred part of life, there would never be another rape.
--Apathy would disappear
--Animal abuse, neglect and abandoment would disappear too. ALL life is sacred, not just the walking, talking two-legged kind. Sure, we still need to eat so raising and killing animals for food would still occur but it would be in a much more humane way.
--Environmental damage would be repaired and prevented from continuing. If ALL life was sacred, noone would look at 300 acres of rainforest and see 300 million dollars. Instead, they would see a rainforest and all the life therein and it would be sacred, protected by the virtue of simply being alive.
Need I go on? (Mind you, I realize there will still be sick people out there, real psychos and the like, who operate with different brains than the rest of us. They would have to be humanely separated somehow. Also, accidents would still happen but it wouldn't be because of apathy or neglect.)
Ryan points out the flaw in my brilliant "I can fix the world with just a simple phrase" idea; there are nearly 7 billion people living on earth, some of whom have hated each other for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. A lot of them (the Western World) are heavily involved in busineses that keep the other 3/4 of the world in a state of poverty and neglect for it's own comfort. (Remember www.thestoryofstuff.com ?) Noone fights against thier own comfort, and getting 7 billion people to agree on ANYTHING is a serious task. But isn't it worth attempting? Utopia, a perfect harmonious world, may be impossible to achieve but isnt' it worth working towards, to get as close as we can? If even half the people on this planet who don't follow this concept started too there would be major change and fast. There are those who do but since they're not a part of the industrialized business end of things (think indigenous and tribal peoples around the globe and most likely a large majority of family farmers) they dont' count apparently. The almighty dollar holds sway instead of this simple concept which is so wrong I just don't have the words.
Imagine if "All life is sacred" was held as the first and most high idea in all cultures and societies, above every law, religion and science. What would that world look like? I imagine there would be a lot of rainbows and unicorn-farts. ;)
February 18th 2009
"That's just the way it is." Man do I hate that attitude. If people always settled for the way things are the civil rights movement in the States would never have happened. The Red School House would never have been built. The feminist movement would also have never happened, along with other important, positive changes. It's by saying THIS ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH and I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE that the world is changed for the better.
On the way home from ceremonies I got into a heated debate with Tausha and Dallas about my ideas; the system the world runs on is fundamentally broken and all that entails. I have no problem with wanting to work and work hard to get what you want in life but having to work your ass off JUST to get by, at the expense of your happiness, family time, and even your health (in some cases) is wrong. The fact that parents both have to work 40 hour a week jobs and put their kids in daycare at like, age 1 (sometimes younger), is wrong. Someone else shouldnt' be raising your child, YOU should be. I'm not against socializing kids. I understand that social interaction is important, no, fundamental to early child development. HOWEVER, being seperated from their parents for hours and hours a day for days at a time cannot be good for them.
Being so dependant on that system for everything we have and need is not a good idea because someday that system will shut down. Hello global food shortages this past summer? Hello lack of oil post-Katrina? Remember that, world? When the lights went out on the eastern seaboard one August a few years ago a lot of people were lost without power. They had no clue how to take care of themselves without it. During the huge ice storm that also hit the northern east coast a few years back people actually DIED because of the lack of power and therefore heat. We don't know how to take care of ourselves OR how to reach out and help others and that's a damn shame.
When I tried to explain this to Dallas and Taush I think I hit a nerve; they both became very defensive. They asked me "What are you going to do about it, Jen? Why waste your energy stressing about how broken the world is? Just try to get through it and provide for your family."
What am I going to do about it? That's a very good question. I try to think back to what others before me have done. Rosa Parks refused to move when the busdriver told her to move to the back of the bus where the other coloured people were. 40 years later we have a black man as President in the States. A single mom with two little girls she was tired of seeing get beaten up everyday at school went to Eddie and said "Do something because I wont have this happen to my girls anymore." And he did. The Red School House was created and has graduated many many American Anishnabe since. Women went to work during WW2, liked it, and refused to leave when their men came home. We're still working to make things equal between the sexes across the board but so much ground has been gained in the past hundred years and some it's astonishing.
Never underestimate the power of a small group of individuals determined to change the world. It's the only thing that ever has. I have to believe that. I have to believe that there are other people out there like me, with similar feelings and ideas, who want to change the world into something better than it is, where moms and dads can raise their kids without worrying where their next paycheque will come from because there wont BE any paycheques, where everyone knows how to grow food and conserves water, where the planet isn't being continuously poisoned and degraded by our every move. It's a lot to ask for but right now, it's babysteps. As long as someone gets the ball rolling it wont stop until all the changes have been made.
What am I going to do about it? I'm going to try and live my life in a way that I think best reflects what I believe and not get sucked wholly into that system, to remain aware of what it is, how it works and what it does. I will fight against it always, raise awareness of it where and when I can and choose my allies with care. Unless I magically become the Prime Minister someday, that's about all I can do; work at a grassroots level and hope it spreads like wildfire from there.
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