Cooling Winds

A cold front moved south from Canada last night, bringing some rain, though not enough, and cooler weather. One can move more and think more clearly with a bit of chill in the air. But the draught of this summer is starting to tax the plant life in neighborhood. The choke cherry trees across Front Street have begun to drop their redundant leaves, yellowing and falling to the ground. Even weeds are wilting and loosing their lowest foliage. These plants will not die, they merely adjust to extant conditions. This can go on for some time; even with broad swings in temperature and rain, the life here will evolve and adjust. But one must sense change and be perceptive of alterations in order to allow living systems to make the shifts they must at times. In a human world that runs from such sensitivity, we have locked ourselves in place, sheltered ourselves from the knowledge that is there to be learned. It is a point I keep returning to, because I believe it is important to our long-term well-being. We have ceased to adapt ourselves and set ourselves on a course of forced stasis. We build and develop and grow and plan as if nothing is to change. There may be flexibility in the way today's modern managers approach the internal society of their corporate culture, but there is none with respect to the world outside. We hear of declining biodiversity and changing climate and toxins in every American and we do not change. We know the consequences of our actions, and we lie to ourselves about them. We make ourselves increasingly, perilously unprepared for the world we have made, and not for ignorance or an inability to predict, but because, at bottom, we would rather live a few moments in false control, than give in to the realities we are embedded in. It is a truism on the social and the personal level, her in the (dis)United States. We no longer look to the world around us for information and knowledge, we turn to the glowing screen, and it has an interest in other goals than our long-term survival. We are such delicate natures, and yet treat ourselves and our fellows as if delicacy were a thing of the past, as if we could erase 5 million years of evolution through the brute strength of steel production and highway building, as if our natures were not cultivated on this rolling, spinning, globe. Who has the energy to swim against the tide of conformity? Who has the courage to change?