All the Simple Things

Maybe my youthful idealism is wearing off, but I'm seeing things in a different light lately, and in this perspective, it appears that there is nothing new under the sun.

I have fought hard against this perspective. People CAN change. We CAN make a difference. We CAN live in peace. Here's a "for instance", on a small scale: As usual, I went into the school year thinking "this year will be different! I'm gonna tweak this and that, and the students will want to learn, and my classroom will be a wonderland community of learning." It soon became obvious, however, that the same student archetypes are walking the halls, the same teachers, the same administrators... the same ME! This year is simply a variation of the past.

Taken to the macrocosm, people as a species seem pretty much the same. I don't think we're getting dumber, we've always been idiotic. We've always been destructive. We don't mind killing. And we're selfish and greedy. And there have always been those who are different.

I suppose the thing that sets us apart in 2007 is overpopulation. There are over 6 billion of us on the earth, and things are getting scarce. I don't think that's going to make us nicer.

Sometimes I think I long for collapse (Is that bad?). Let's just level this shit we've built. All the McMansions, all the fancy cars and expensive toys and clothes and bullshit that makes me better than you.

I saw Into the Wild this weekend, and I have thought about the movie a lot. Christopher McCandless rejected a sick society and yearned for something pure and good. It was hard to see him die in the end, and I couldn't help but connect his death to all the beauty that disappears around me. All the natural habitat and animals with it. All the farmland, all the simple things. The healthy earth, as we knew it.