shh, i'm digesting

Finished:

Let me tell you a story. This afternoon, I took a nap as I was exhausted. Having been suckered into taking the opening shift at Frog's Club this morning, I had been up since 6 am, lifeguarding and teaching swimming lessons sucking all my remaining energy.

While I was sleeping, I had a dream. Not a silly dream, like my last couple, or a crazy dream like they usually are, but a metaphorical, social commentary kind of dream that pretty much sums up everything I've been cogitating on the past week or so I've been reading Mr Jensen's book.

In my dream, I was in my real-life position of swim instructor, and I was talking to a group of parents interested in signing their children up for swimming lessons. After explaining to them what I would be teaching, my various techniques, how long the lessons would be and how much they would cost, I told them they had a choice. They could either enter their children in my class, teaching them how to swim at the expense of the environment (chemicals from the pool killing animals and vegetation, and the pavement laid down to build it having exterminated a rare kind of bird) and at the cost of lives for children in third world countries (their bathing suits, the swim equipment, and the various other materials around the pool deck having been made by sweatshop workers in South America); or, they could not enroll their children, and run the risk that one day, they might drown.

Is that really a choice?

Obviously, I took a lot of out Mr Jensen's book. It's affected me profoundly, and I'm not sure how I can go back to living normally and casually, like so many of us do, in this world that's built on the backs of the less fortunate (and the brown, and the black, and the environment). Who made this computer? Is she still alive? I enjoy my Futurama DVDs greatly, but is it only because I've been fortunate enough to have a strong education in science that allows me to get most of the jokes? I made an extremely sarcastic comment today, my mom having dragged me into Walmart with her causing my eternal bitterness. She wanted to buy gelatin tablets, because it supposedly strengthens your nails and makes them shiny. She showed me, saying, "I think it's made a difference already" to which I responded, "That's great, the cows you killed are glad your nails look nice."

She was hurt, and astounded, but she still bought the capsules.

I can never chronicle precisely how much of what I do, eat, wear, etc, is affecting those who are exploited in other countries. I can't stop using electricity, although who knows what havoc is being wreaked on the environment (someone knows, sure, but I don't, and that's the point). I like scoring a cheap shirt or pair of jeans at the GAP, but at whose expense?

The point is, we don't have choices. Sure, we can decide whether to watch Friends or Fraser (although you'll likely be disappointed in both), eat Domino's or Pizza Hut (again, you'll likely be disappointed in both), you can get gas at Shell or BP (but, Shell's intimidating people in Nigeria while here at home trying to pull the wool over our eyes with their cleaner fuel campaign, and British Petroluem struck a deal with China to drill in Tibet through extremely fragile ecosystems and nomadic pathways). You have lots of "choices" but none of them are truly any different from the next.

Even if I want to eat organically, I have to take my car to Henry's. If I want to keep in shape, I have to douse myself in a pool filled with chemicals- chlorine being one of them- either that, or I have to pay to go (again by car) to a "preserved" area, set aside and maintained so that I can convince myself I'm communing with nature.

Who mined the metals that made my trombone? How many trees did it take to make my library collection? What is the indigenous name for the place I live in? What kind of plants used to be here, and how many that are now don't belong?

So, where do I look? How do I stop this madness, or at least take steps to correct it? Choose my battles? Become a hermit?

How do you guarantee you have real, palpable choices in this world? What kinds of decisions do you make to live freely? Can you take all the anger and frustration and sadness and roll it up and make it effective? Let me know. Otherwise, I'm thinkin' we're doomed.