Love is the Only Way Out
The other night I was at a potluck with some of my best friends. We laughed and ate together and as anxious millennials in Boulder tend to do, discussed the Environmental Crisis. In the past a lot of my responses to these conversations has been to preach my latest knowledge of Climate Science. Instead, strangely I found myself filled with a profound love for my friends and peace. I said “We are all going to die one day, I think the real question is how we choose to live.” The past few years I have let my fear of the future keep me from being present with my loved one’s and the world around me. I have pushed people away and lost a lot of opportunities to actually create positive change with the world around me. Working with activists and having a strong passion myself for environmentalism, I’ve noticed how easy it is to feel hopeless and depressed. Underneath that I’ve often found there is a tender, hurting and beautiful place of love. We are afraid to lose this world and the people in it because we love it tremendously. We feel that we need to seek out love and certainty to feel happy, yet we had it with us all long, we just forget to notice it sometimes.
In the face of the loss that our lives increasingly seem to be defined by, we are left with a simple but important question, “What really matters?” I believe that what has gotten us into this mess is neglecting that question, and the only way out is finding an honest answer. Many people on their deathbeds state that their biggest regrets were not spending time with the people that they love. Our lives only have meaning in relationship to one another and the world around us. We fight for a cause because we want to protect the people and places that we love, we buy a bigger house because we want security and comfort for our families, we buy a new car because we want the respect and admiration of our friends.
Yet beneath the cause, the house and the car - all we wanted was love. There are important causes to fight for and nothing is wrong with buying a house or a car. But when we lose sight of what’s important we lose ourselves in these things - and the world around us suffers.
So then how do we save the World? Well we need to rapidly transform our society in unprecedented ways in a short amount of time that requires every one of us to come together in solidarity and use our unique gifts and talents for the betterment of humanity and the Earth. How do we get billions of people to work towards the good of each other and the planet? Well why would most mothers jump in front of a car without thinking to save their child? Love. We don’t need to be convinced, educated or told to save the world. We just need to be reminded how much we love it and the people, places and animals in it. I want to end this article out with a scene from “The Lord of the Rings”. In it Sam and Frodo stand together in a ruined city after a large Battle. Frodo says to Sam: “I can’t do this, Sam.”
Sam replies: “I know. It’s all wrong by rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.”
Frodo asks: “What are we holding on to, Sam?” Sam replies: “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”