Loving you was so easy.

Today, I cried about a dog. Maybe it was the carcinogenic seasoning affecting my brain, or maybe I connected with a bit of life that hits me in precious moments too few and far between.

There was a guide dog that was helping a blind lady on a crowded bus on my way home. He was a medium-sized dog, with shiny black hair. What caught my attention, besides the fact that he was a cute animal, was that he crossed one of his front paws over the other while he sat. From my perspective, he looked so sad lying with his belly on the bus floor next to his owner's feet, surrounded by a cage of swaying legs and shoes, trying not to skid around while the bus lurched forward and ground to way too many unnecessary halts, meanwhile making himself as immobile as possible to avoid being stepped on. Oh well, the bus lurched again and his tail was stepped on by a lady who lost her balance. The poor dog didn't make a sound, just tucked its tail forward and kept its head down.

I've seen a few guide dogs on the subway, but this one really moved me. I felt sorry for the dog, not for the blind human. I felt bad that the dog was forced into a life of servitude, destined to lead a human around and not enjoy its own freedom. I was amazed at the dog's courage to confront human rush hour on public transportation every day, heed what his owner wanted to do. I leave for work either at 7:45am or 9am just to miss the masses, because I have a choice.

I felt a lump grow in my throat and tears start forming. Luckily, it was a few minutes before my stop. Tears flowed free on my walk home, though!

While I'm relieved that I am still able to feel spontaneous emotion, I'm concerned that I felt more compassion for this dog than for the human. Is that just me?

The world is driving me slowly insane...

I'm proud to announce that I have officially entered into the realm of the small-time activist. This morning, I followed an "action" link from an e-mail sent by StopGlobalWarming.org and chose to send a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to "help save polar bears from global warming" as described by the promotional e-mail:

The Bush Administration is beginning the review process to decide whether to protect the polar bear, threatened with extinction due to global warming, under the Endangered Species Act. But we must speak up before February 23, 2007, or they will not hold public hearings on this critical matter.

Please help by sending a message directly to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, letting them know you want public hearings on polar bear protection. They are not required by law to hold such hearings, but they can be swayed if we all speak up.

While polar bears may not be my main concern, the reason I did take action this time may be three-fold:

1. The really cute, poor little animated polar bear who couldn't find a resting spot on any solid floating ice-patch while swimming in the ocean (which, yes, was shown in An Inconvenient Truth, where else?), causing him to eventually drown, but they don't show that.
   
2. The "U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service" in Anchorage, Alaska seemed like a fairly benevolent organization that would most likely not, in my unfounded opinion, arrange for vengeful retaliation against citizens of the world, unlike my feelings for the EPA or FCC, who seem to be more closely connected to the executive branch of our government, to whom I strongly desire to send action/opposition letters, but am too scared that something similar to 1984 will happen to me and my loved ones... eeeekk.
3. I just couldn't stand by and watch our mathematics and science curriculum degenerate into writing classes, oil companies dictate international politics, media skewing/hiding world events relevant to the general public, public officials involved in a leak conspiracy trying to do a cover-up on what should be an exposure, and remain complacent. I'm mad as hell, and I won't take it anymore! *makes another desperate passing swipe at apathy*
   

If, upon the occurrence of the unlikely, and my identity is suddenly put out of existence, at least you'll have a sneaking suspicion of why!

Let's get down to the nitty-gritty...

How many of you haven't watched An Inconvenient Truth, yet? Just so you know, it's one of the few things that has been able to light a fire under me, just enough to get me involved to this extent (i.e. doing online research and actually caring about political decisions). I've recently also been considering submitting letters to the EPA via the Union of Concerned Scientists webpage... Dang, I'm losing it! *makes passing grab at apathy*

But s-e-r-i-o-u-s-l-y now, I'm really excited about the report coming out next Friday (Feb. 2nd) by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). For a little background, the IPCC is a scientific review panel consisting of more than 2,500 researchers from over 130 nations, with the mission as stated on its website:

"to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. The IPCC does not carry out research nor does it monitor climate related data or other relevant parameters. It bases its assessment mainly on peer reviewed and published scientific/technical literature." [italics mine]

After 6 years of work, they are ready to release a report to policymakers, and the world, that assesses:

1. what progress has been made in understanding and attributing human-induced vs. natural climate change.
2. the implications based on observations made of the atmosphere, oceans, sea level, and snow.
3. how the climate been behaving for the last hundreds of thousands of years.
4. the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change.
5. the projections of future changes: negative and positive consequences of climate change.
6. the options for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and otherwise mitigating climate change, and options for adapting to it.

I'm sure it will be a rather unnerving learning experience for all of us who are willing to listen with an open mind, and who are willing to hear the real and immediate consequences of inaction. With the larger significant changes to our globe in recent years and, especially, with international involvement, I desperately hope that these current efforts will not yield the same results as the report by U.S.' National Assessment on Climate Change in 2000:

"The National Assessment was attacked upon publication by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), an industry-funded think tank with an anti-regulatory free-market philosophy and a longstanding history of opposing efforts to address global warming. CEI filed lawsuits seeking to have the NACC report declared unlawful and to suppress its dissemination. These suits were dismissed "with prejudice," which means they had so little merit that they could not be refiled. In an interview, James R. Mahoney, admitted that the Climate Change Science Program has been constrained in its ability to use information in the National Assessment." (on Wikipedia)

Bush has recently defended the current unprecedented release of carbon emissions based on the one-sided belief that lowering carbon emissions standards in automobiles and industrial factories would be a devastating blow to the American economy, and would therefore be out of the question.

Let me ask you this. Would losing our freedom in 50 years due to climate terrorism also be considered a devastating blow to the American economy? What then?

Let us pray.

"Dear Lord, I thank you for this time to give praise to you, for your everlasting mercy, love, and grace."

This opening, albeit a standard kickoff, invokes a myriad of reactions depending on your experiences. Distaste, repugnance, wariness, triviality, incomprehension, defensiveness, hatred. Or it could be gratefulness, hopefulness, security, calming, warmth, understanding, focus.

It is globally understood, though, as an offering of a spiritual prayer - the beginning of the outpouring of an individual's hopes, dreams, worries, and angst.

"I want to offer up my devotion to you, and ask for your guidance during this time. I feel lost, Lord, unaware of my path, unknowing of where to step next."

Here is where it gets sticky. Replace the concept of the Christian "Lord" with a general "anybody out there" or "mom" or even your own name, then take away the religious wording, and you get the type of thought that most people whisper to themselves during times of crisis and doubt. The feeling, at least, is universal no matter what religion you do, or don't, believe.

"I pray to receive strength and comfort in knowing that you are here watching over me, and in knowing that the future is secure in your ultimate plan."

We'd all love to know that what we're doing at every point in our lives is contributing to a greater good, whether it be for humankind or any other desirable kind. To know would help us make decisions easier, take action easier, remain inactive easier, even let breathing come easier. In other words, living life easier.

Life, I find, is full of heaviness and unhappiness. By all means, please prove me wrong, please. Where does this dreariness come from? A lack of purpose? A grinding guilt emanating from our childhood? Our role-model caregivers? Capitalism and bureaucracy? The "War in Iraq/Iran/Syria/North Korea/Darfur/Israel/Palestine/Sudan/Afghanistan/Mexico/Mother Nature" and other global state of affairs? There seems to be no limit to the sources of darkness - if we don't see one immediately, we can readily conjure one up.

I've heard on TV (yay!) that this general malaise and apathy is a natural reaction of human beings toward being exposed to the goings on in the world today. That's reassuring. To combat it, how about this helpful tip from a "Positive Thinking" magazine: If you fake happiness, you'll eventually believe it. Radical. I also recall hearing some straightforward logic in which it doesn't serve any productive function to be negative - it gets you nowhere and only pushes you down - so, why not be positive and save yourself the grief? A somewhat convincing rationale, I must admit. The first time I heard it, I really tried to give positivity a shot. But somehow after the fourth and fifth times, I just kept forgetting about it and reverting back to mundanity.

Prayer, or its more popular second cousin, inner cries of despair, however, is another thing on its own. It naturally spurts out now and then, doesn't it? "Oh man, this sucks." or "Help me, someone... anyone?" or "I'm so friggin' tired of this." or "What the hell am I supposed to do now?" Asked, or rather, tossed out there into the vast ether of space and time. Interestingly, upon the utterance comes a definite moment of repose, an almost release from the heat of the moment. Perchance could there also be a split-second expectation of an answer to the mindlessness somewhere in that moment? One would have to analyze oneself honestly to find out, but I suspect it would be true.

"Dear God, thank you so much for your love and forgiveness. I pray that you will continue to fill us with warmth and a passion to serve you through the journey that we are each taking. I trust that you will lead us to glory. I give this time to you. Amen."

For those of us not on the religious bandwagon, there has to be a way to refocus our inner cries of despair and guilt into concrete thoughts, recognition of a fundamental trust toward life, disregarding of self-judgment, and developing true acceptance and thankfulness toward the life you are living, with the will to keep going on the journey. A meditation of sorts, where it's just you and "the ether of space and time" communing, no judgment, no expectations, no pressure. Perhaps that will be enough to rise above the deathly doldrums. For me, with enough daring and patience, that may be the way away from Lexapro-and-friends. Let me not forget...

Apathy and Anger - an overreaction and analysis

Is it me, or are people becoming more and more apathetic and less responsible towards their fellow citizens in these times of war and financial turmoil?

I realize that most of you have experienced the event that I'm going to write about, anyway, but frustration needs venting!

Walking across the Star Market parking lot, I watched in horror as a middle-aged woman, too lazy to walk to a proper storage area, heaved her used shopping cart across the aisle towards the mulched curb at the edge of the lot, and right into the side of my car. Apparently, she didn't account for the way the pavement slanted, making the cart veer slightly left and pick up speed as it crashed. I was speechless with disbelief and anger at her inconsiderate attitude! Where is the love?? True, she may not have purposefully aimed for a car, but she didn't even care to look at where the cart was headed the second it left her manicured, spoiled little hands.

My first instinct was just to watch (how apathy rears it's ugly head!), but a very close second reaction was to shout after her to watch where she threw her crap. Unfortunately, that split second reaction was already too late - she was getting in her shiny car backing out of her spot. I wanted so badly to run right up to her driver-side window and pound on it, yelling profanities, but the realistic side of me said, "She might have a gun in her glove compartment." Who knows these days with the state of things, but it was probably just a lame excuse not to get involved.

So, ashamed as I am for it, it ends up I did nothing but gawk and get really hot in the face, standing in the rain-soaked lot next to my dear, violated Corolla. More upset at my lack of reaction rather than the actual occurence itself (there were no marks on my car), I spent the rest of the day and half of the next day regretful and furious over how apathy and irresponsibility have settled like a dark cloud over the major populice of these times. Just how many people truly operate like that woman, I don't know, but the pessimistic side of me feels that it must be the majority of the nation. The optimistic side of me tells me to have hope, look at the exceptions, and give the "populice" a chance. I don't know about you, but I am always surprised by those exceptions - the acts of friendliness that shatter my reality. Are you?

There is a common theme here, something I attribute to the steady decline of the state of the country, the way that news reporting is being monopolized into infotainment such that the public is no longer given a chance for action through democracy; it has all become a sit-and-watch-other-people-suffer,-isn't-it-fantastic?! method of brainwash into futility. There is a definite lack of relevant news focusing on our government policies, and implications of these on the nation and on the rest of the world. Wake up! There is life after America, after all! The network stations aren't giving the public a chance to fight for democracy and ultimate good - apathy and inaction ensue. That woman was apathetic enough not to return that shopping cart where it was supposed go in the first place, apathetic enough to not to care whether her actions were going to damage someone else's property, apathetic enough not to look at the results of her handiwork, and my own apathy in not sharing my feelings about her actions directly to her face.

Someone pass the Zoloft, unless you have a better idea.