Plastic or paper?
Here or to-go?
Before we know it, billions of mindless decisions are made everyday. Taylorism (efficiency down to the smallest detail) has found its way into fast cars and fast food.
Even into our every-day use of language: just a sec, ASAP, bs.
There is no excuse for snappiness. We have stood by helplessly as McDonalization and Walmartization take over our planet.
A signage up, a tree down.
I am glad to hear that people here in Vietnam send back their equivalence of Christmas trees (Mai) back to nursery farms, where they will be replanted until next year.
In the States, only old folks get sent to hospice never to return home.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Every morning, outside my door, a man took a fast walk with his old dad.
I enjoyed watching them.
With reasonable guess, we can deduce that that man’s son will someday go with him on the same walk.
There is something in life that we cannot rush e.g. losing weight, growing deeper in a relationship, acquiring a new skill set (10,000 hours).
In college, I produced a TV spot on energy conservation.
People thought it was just a trend (back then, gasoline was still cheap, and Three Mile Island had not yet happened until I stumbled upon that scoop during my TV internship).
With tsunami and Fukushima behind us, we seem to take the so-called “tree huggers” a bit more serious.
It’s down to our every day’s choices: re-use a plastic bag, place the cigarette butts in proper places (especially in Singapore), and water the plants.
Some scientists are urging to reclassify sugar as toxic.
It seems as if we are all beginners at comprehending our planet.
The 80’s saw peak use of hair-dryers (and shoulder pads).
The 90’s water bottles and SUV‘s.
Just lately that hybrid cars started to gain some traction.
Just in time for Iran‘s rumble (hence, Venezuela‘s oil supplies as well).
Trees will still be here after we are long gone.
So those trees (cay Mai) will be back next year, delivered by the nursery just in time to bloom again for the year of the Snake.
Meanwhile our daily choices boil down to “paper or plastic”, “here or to-go”.
Sit there and eat. Save a bag, and save yourself some stress (of eating on the run). Don’t fall victim to the economy of scale (default choice is plastic and to-go). Defense!
I am growing liberal by the minute as the planet gets hotter by one degree at a time. Let me know when you found a tree-hugger. I will embrace him/her as well. Conservation takes work and thoughtfulness. Convenience just happens by default. I stand at the fork in the road, I take the road less traveled, says Frost.
Thang Nguyen 555 