June 2008
Talk O’ Town: Joshua Tree
This morning I went into the local health food store to pick up a few items of necessity. Standing next to me was a very buffed-out six foot two inch hulk all sunburned, tanned and charred, grinning with a happy two day stubble, golden hairs glistening off his ruddy arms, long blond hair, wearing outback shorts, a roughed up T-shirt and a big ole straw woven hat. He was the picture of everything healthy, wholesome, and alternative. It seemed natural to ask, “You into solar energy?” June 2008 “Excuse me?”
“You into solar energy?”
“Ah, yeah, I suppose so, it’s a good thing. Why?”
“I just heard of Bush’s moratorium on all solar energy installations on federal BLM lands. In the same bill he removed restrictions on oil and mining. I thought you might have a stake in the matter.”
He said, “No. Didn’t hear about that. Not really.” He chuckled, “Why would anyone want to put solar energy plants out on the desert?”
“Yeah, crazy,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out who in the hell voted for this crap. Did you? I know I didn’t.”
Nature boy finished up at the register and headed for the door. On the way out he said, “Things are getting better. Way better. Just got to keep looking up.” The door closed behind him.
“For who?” I asked out loud. “No polar ice expected this winter in the Arctic Sea. You mean better for the Inuit, for the polar bears, the salmon, whales, tundra, you mean better like that?”
A woman voiced-up as she brought her goods to the counter. She also wore a straw hat. It was crumpled, sweat stained and dog-eared. She was bigger than me and had a large blue tattoo stain on her right shoulder. In ninety degree weather she wore a new pair of those upscale New England mail order lamb’s wool-lined brushed skin half-calf boots and sported a satin-like brown nightie with embroidered black lace detail.
“Everything is beautiful if you want it to be,” she said. “If you want to look at negativity, if you want to feed the negativity and spread the disease of your own negativity then you just go right ahead. Not me. We each make our own worlds and see what we want to see and my world is getting better all the time. It’s all up to you,” she reiterated, “it’s your choice.”
“Yes, of course. I understand. We all love each other and there’s peace everywhere.”
“That’s it. That’s it exactly. When you figure that out you won’t have to worry about things you can’t change. We’re each responsible for the way we see the world and if you want to focus on the negative then the world will be a negative place.”
“Wow,” I thought. “Here’s my lesson in some honest to goodness new age alchemy and civic responsibility. It’s the law of opposites attract. Because I stood up against war, for the rights of women and for the welfare of children and because I voted against environmental degradation I have empowered the evil doers and am therefore responsible for all the damages and heartache done.
“Not bad,” I thought, “not bad at all. She’s the radiant source of light and doesn’t have to do anything but look pretty and think positive. It is a spiritual, kabalistic matter only devotees like her can understand. After all, everything has gotten better for her. In her universe of spiritual justice and cosmic unity everybody gets what they deserve. She gets organic tofu, range-free chicken, a tax reduction and that brand new Toyota 4Runner I saw her drive up in because she has beautiful thoughts. Good thing I studied anthropology so I could recognize this for what it is—a stage of cognitive development common in the village life of Poland or Mongolia at about 1250 AD or even BC.
“Whereas in the world I live in, the world with the anguish and tears of fellow human beings, the ones paying the consequences of her beautiful thoughts, the ones dying on the oil fields needed to fill her Toyota 4Runner, that is to say, the world with newspapers and other living things in it, well, we deserve the atrocities of extinction because we’re so negative, because we voted to stop it.”
On my way out I said, “It’s been a real bumper sticker morning for Ignorance is Bliss, eh?”
The girl, a Canadian transplant replied, “Aye.”