Out of 7 Billion, One

I hope “the System” doesn’t destroy Greta.

(with slogans like “Make America Greta Again” etc…).

Or, for this edit, TIME person of the year.

Don’t kill the messenger, since we’re all Gretas. Can’t kill us all.

The message is: we’re at the tipping point (of “abusing what surround us”, including people) in Bolivia (forest fire), in Beijing and in Baltimore.

Like the saying “charity begins at home”, conservation begins at home.

The oil field, the wind farm and the solar roof can only get us that far. Since the day Ford put together two bikes to make four-wheels, and the Vagabonds toured the country roads before going home ( to discover it – Detroit- for the first time), we have mistaken the means (transportation) and the end (to pursue happiness).

Why don’t we start again with Yoga and meditation ( and save many trips to the gym).

We should hold a brainstorm session, worldwide – UN Headquarter or ShutdownDC – to start with actionable lifestyle alterations to our exploitive and toxic living/working habits.

Debates about behavior – attitude chicken/egg aside, let’s curtail the habitual carelessness and false assumptions about our self-healing Earth.

Maybe the Earth will heal itself in millions of years. But by then there won’t be any Gretas, the new dinosaurs.

I grew up with one lousy ball. I threw it up in the air, then jumped from the table to catch it. Rinse and repeat. The repeated action etched in memories. I did not contribute to the waste dump (there weren’t any Toys R Us).

My first bike was a recycled one. Hence, I did not contribute to the waste dump. My first guitar is now kept and re-cycled by my rhythm guitarist. I did not contribute to the waste dump.

Repeat after me: recycle, recycle, recycle.

In Vietnam, every school has a signage ” Tien hoc Le, Hau hoc Van” ( first and foremost, learn respect, then the Rest ). Although the original and intended meaning was to teach young students their places in the scheme of things, the slogan should now include ” First, respect Mother Earth” (now, who has been ahead of the game? Us or the Native American?).

I hope you recycle your plastic. Don’t listen to the advice in “The Graduate”. Plastic is on the way out. Focusing on it as a career ain’t gonna make you a yuppie.

At Penn State or Paris, people are sending out “S.O.S.’s” on behalf of their future, ours.

We move from point A to point B , cradle to the grave, thinking of distance and traveling (space). But we forget that the Gretas of the world barely grow from decade A to decade B (time).

Give them a chance. A chance that Lewis & Clark took for granted (seeing it across the vast expanse). A chance Columbus took for granted (home is where you will run into if you travel long enough). A chance the 9 of us, war refugees, took for granted ( the 7th fleet awaiting in International Waters), a chance I’ve got when the FEMA guy came and measured the rising flood level in my Baton Rouge Apartment ( 100-year flood). A hope that life awaits us each day, with blue sky always.

Hope is alive today as it has always been, and somehow, it resides in a 16- years-old Swedish. The message has finally chosen its messenger, out of 7 Billion, one ( and I hope the System – PR, endorsement, political extremism riding on her coat tail etc… doesn’t do her in). Attitude change or behavior change? which one comes first? who cares. Just conserve.