When Will Enough REALLY Be Enough?

I sit here wondering about what it will really take. As most of you already know I am reading Derrick Jensen’s Endgame Volume 1. The book touches on a very real question that I am ashamed I cannot answer in any way that makes me proud. Jensen asks what it will really take for people to take action to preserve the environment and change the way we live. He then starts to list all of the horrible things that have already happened to the environment and are currently happening—all of the devastation has not been enough as of yet. His premise is that the collective whole of society will not willingly change their way of life to a more ecologically friendly one. I have to agree with him.

I look at myself, for instance. I am prepared to be harsh here to make a point. I consider myself an environmentalist. I talk about the environment every day, how bad of shape it’s in, and how to save it. I dream of living in the mountains off the land and having no contact with the outside world. As you saw in my last post I could “pull a Chris McCandless” without much hesitation, yet enough isn’t enough for me yet. I know that the planet is struggling; I know how bad things really are. I read books and watch shows and talk about it all the time. Yet I haven’t been pushed over the edge to actually DO something. If someone as far gone as me hasn’t been pushed, how can I expect others to be?

I feel that this culture has so corrupted us that even I, someone who refuses to be blinded, am. I wince at the thought of dammed rivers and clear-cut forests yet I smile at sales online and order shoes I don’t need with little hesitation. I talk about conserving threatened fish yet don’t speak up while out to dinner when someone orders something I know is struggling to survive. It would be “improper” you see, to do so. When am I going to say “to hell with what is proper” and start making a difference? What will it take? I think I’d have to cut all ties with this society and go live on that mountain for awhile first. Otherwise I’d just keep getting sucked in by emails talking of free shipping and restaurants with a classy client base.

If I took all the time I spend preaching about recycled toilet paper and spent it actually contacting the press and companies that are clear-cutting for fresh pulp, maybe I’d make more of a difference. Or, perhaps, chaining myself to a tree is the only way. I need to change the way that I live if I expect people less ardent about this than I to do so. I need to stop living the life of a hypocritical dreaming hippie and start being the revolutionary I am in my heart.

I need to actually say Enough is Enough and start living my life like I mean it. Maybe then people will listen to me and things will change. Or maybe not.