Finding The Playable Objective

I've been having a lot of trouble writing this post. That's not quite it, I haven't been having trouble writing it at all, I've been writing it for the better part of 2008, but I've been having trouble writing it in a way that's not directly offensive to pretty much everyone.

Sustainability turns out to be a hot button issue for me. I use plastic bags (use 'em twice since I have sanitation rules here with the dog), I leave at least one light burning at all times so the cats can see the catbox in the closet, occasionally I run the dishwasher before it's full yet sustainability is a hot button issue for me? How is that possible?

I've spent a lot of time feeling guilty about all of those things and many, many more (I take long showers, OK, I've tried to cut down and I just can't do it!). I should, too. I should be trying harder to recycle (I'm lucky that recycling is easy here in NYC and I do a lot of it but I could do more) and to cut down on packaging and a hundred other things. I spend time on the internet so I hear people getting up on their soap boxes about this stuff and I feel chastised every time, even if the conversation is Diapers: Cloth or Disposable.

Then one day I noticed that a decent chunk of the people giving Reduce/Reuse/Recycle lectures had kids and they'd had them the old-fashioned way. Usually more than one. Often more than 3. That's a lot of kids. In addition some of them had purebred, non-rescued pets and a few had purebred, non-rescued unneutered/unspayed pets.

And here's where I get stuck every time I try to write this post because all I want to do is start screaming, "IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT WHEN I BUY A ROLL OF PAPER TOWELS AND A NEW SWEATER BUT IT'S OK TO BRING A WHOLE NEW CONSUMER ONTO OUR OVERTAXED LITTLE PLANET!??!?!?!!" Then I start spinning in circles and quoting Dan Savage on breeders and telling stories about my mother's 9 cats and 2 possums and banging my shoe on the desk like Kruschev.

Eventually I calm down and realize that the shoe-banging approach is unlikely to convince people see my side of the story. I mean, really, when was the last time you told someone, "Yeah, I don't think you should have children." and they took it well? I'm guessing somewhere in the vicinity of never.

I'm going to try and explain my basic view on this extremely not basic question in a few short non-judgemental sentences and I beg you to do your best to read them in that same spirit.

I think we have plenty of people and companion animals on the earth right now. We have for as long as I've been alive I'll bet. A lot of those beings don't have enough food or shelter or medical care or moral guidance or sympathetic ears to listen or strong arms to throw the ball for a game of fetch. I think that reducing, reusing and recycling are important tools in the quest for sustainability but I think they are a secondary part of that effort. I think that the core of sustainability is in taking care of the beings already here needing to use items which will then need to be reduced, reused and recycled before we make more. In light of that thinking I find it incongruous (once I've put down my shoe and taken a deep breath) that people are purchasing specifically bred dogs and having biological children, often many of each, and then constructing a sturdy soap box from which to lecture the populous on how we're using too many precious, finite resources.

Ok, whew, are we all still here and wearing both our shoes? That was scary to write and it's going to be even scarier to hit "publish." I hope we all survive and still exchange holiday cards.

After 100 mental re-writes of this subject I was still desperately looking for a way to make my case from a positive stance. In acting classes they tell you that you "can't play a negative." For instance deciding that my objective for a scene is "I don't love Steve" won't help me but if it's a scene with Steve and I play "I love Stephanie" well, there's something I can work with. Even if I'm shoe bangingly angry every time I read someone's opinion about how to approach sustainability challenging their beliefs isn't useful. Telling people what my, quite possibly opposing (but perhaps not), views are is more "playable." As it turns out my upbringing and life are a decent start for positive illustrations of my beliefs on the core of sustainability. Did you know that my grandfather, my father and I are all only children but we each have at least one sibling? Yeah, I'll explain as we get along in the series.

Series? You may ask.

Yeah, a series is in order I think. Every so often I'm going to write up a sustainability story. Look for informally adopted children, formally adopted dogs, rescued cats and one terrible story about a taxidermist and a skunk.