Unpacked: A Walker Returns Home

Seamus the Cat and I have always agreed to peacefully share our apartment’s bedroom/office space in the morning. I sit at the computer and work, he sits on the bed and sleeps. And we do pretty well, too. If either one of us needs to get up for a stretch, we usually even stop by and wish one another a quick hello.

But yesterday, it all fell apart.

You see, I got up to play the mandolin for a few minutes of break. Upon hearing the very first note, Seamus grumpily glared at me, got up, did a little yawn, slumped himself out of the room and found somewhere more quiet to sit.

I’m sure you can appreciate that it did not make me feel very good.

On the other hand, though, there’s the world.

You know, the world, us, you, everyone- people in general, who are doing pretty good, I think.

I spent a few hours yesterday sifting through a list of 50 environmental blogs, in order to create our Suggested Links column on Jewish Climate Initiative’s Climate of Change. And I encountered some pretty unbelievable sites and people and solutions:

There was The City Fix, a blog that explores sustainable solutions to urban mobility. I read about Kilmarnock, Scotland, which is instituting public buses that run on biodiesel made from used cooking oil.

How do you think passengers will pay for their bus? This is true- they will pay by bringing their used cooking oil. Had a stir-fry for dinner? Well you just earned yourself a bus ride. Cool, no?

Other favorites of mine included the high school kid that figured out how to biodegrade plastic bags, the Recycle This blog that tackles reusing/recycling things like old carseats and breadmaker pans, and the EcoGeek blog for EcoTechies.

An important blog, I thought, was the Climate Debate Daily, posting arguments both for and against combating climate change. It’s always valuable to learn from and engage with the other side, right?

For more great environmental blogs, click here for Climate of Change, and check out the column on the right labeled Bloggers Fixing the World.

No doubt that our potential as humans to harm the world has gotten bigger- Nukes, Climate Change, Global Food Crises- we can do more serious damage than ever, and we can do it very fast.

But like a pendulum, the farther we go down, the farther we can go up. And the truth is really that there are a lot of people out there coming up with creative solutions to help us all do Earth better.

And so, if this list of blogs is any indicator, then I’d say we really are in okay shape. Yup- I really think all the bad stuff is gonna have a very happy ending after all.

And as for Seamus and me? Well, I give him food. He’ll have to warm to my mandolin some day…

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I’d like to Unpack this week with some quotes, from William Coperthwaite’s A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity.

So this is an important book. About breaking free from the over-stuff-ization that accounts for much of modern man’s struggles. I’ve been reading my sister Liron’s copy for a few months now, and Mr. Coperthwaite’s wisdom has been instrumental in helping me learn to Unpack the slowness and simplicity of the backcountry in my life in the city. Thanks Liron!

As you may recall, I apologized publicly to my kitchen knife a few months ago, after the knife complained of its woes in its kitchen drawer. Little did I know that Mr. Coperthwaite believes in apologizing to stuff, as well!

Says Mr. Coperthwaite:

“Have you ever had the experience of apologizing to an inanimate object? When we drop a cup and break it, we violate its nature. All things, be they living or inanimate, have their own nature, spirit, or essence. Whenever we come into contact with anything, we either promote or hinder that essential nature. Unless we seek to understand the nature of the things that surround us, we will be a hindrance rather than a help to our world.

“Developing sensitivity and awareness by searching for the basic nature of things is the road to understanding. When we drop and break a cup, we do violence to its spirit, its purpose, and to the work of the artisan who shaped it. We owe the cup an apology.

“Whether running a canoe aground, dulling a chisel on a nail, or puncturing a tire- instead of cursing, we owe an apology. You may respond that the object has no feelings. I would tend to agree with you. But apologies are both given and received, and the effect on the giver may be more important than the effect on the recipient.”

Mr. Coperthwaite brings some pretty incredible quotes with him in A Handmade Life, and while I’m already quoting, I’d like to share two of my favorites:

“You say, ‘Isnt it sad that a diamond, when seen to its essence, is nothing but common carbon?’ I say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that common carbon, in its most developed form, is the finest of diamonds?’ You say, ‘Isn’t it sad that altruism, when seen in its basic structure, is nothing but base selfishness?’ I say, ‘Isn’t it marvelous that base selfishness, in its most enlightened form, is the purest of altruism?’”

-Pierre Ceresole (Swiss Engineer, 1879-1945)

And (You may recognize part of this quote from Liron Kranzler’s music/Doogree Records):

“When you work you are a flute

through whose heart the whispering

of the hours turns to music.

To love life through labor is to be intimate

with life’s inmost secret.

All work is empty save when there is love,

for work is love made visible.”

-Khalil Ghibran (Lebanese-American Poet, 1883-1931)

(I love that “work is love made visible” part. Kinda sounds like marriage…)

May our work open us up to what we already have,

A simple week to all,

Yannai

Heard any good quotes lately? Share Share!

Thank God. We’ve finally got it. We are entitled.

It has become the fashion to put down my generation for living in an “Age of Entitlement,” a “Cult of Self-Esteem” and for being spoiled, arrogant and narcissistic.

I’ve heard and read these descriptions and similar ones in the context of young people not wearing suits in the workplace, parents’ and educators’ frustration at motivating/controlling teens, even in cynical reactions to college students’ excitement about Barak Obama and the silly belief that the world could be better.

Part of me wants to say that older people have always called younger people spoiled. I imagine that Mitch the teenage caveman’s dad nagged him about cave-children thinking they were entitled to everything, just expecting stuff to be hunted and gathered to the cave all by itself. I am positive that cave-parents complained to each other all the time that “Kids these days just can’t imagine a reality without fire.”

And I could write it off like that. But that would only be partially true. Today’s critics are right: We have evolved into believing in our own entitlement. I just think it’s a good thing.

A solid chunk of history behind us, we’ve moved past believing that gods didn’t care whether we were good enough, to flagellating ourselves because we could never be good enough, to thinking that if we tried hard, we could “Make something out of ourselves” and become good enough, to finally realizing:

Hey- we are good enough. Now. From the beginning. We are something, before we’ve ever made, anything.

From my perspective, if anyone believes that people- young, old, near, far- are not entitled to a comfortable life with a family in a nice, safe living-space, then I guess I respect their opinion but think them tragically incorrect. I believe that our species erred in ever thinking that worth had to be earned.

I find it painful when I read articles putting down young people for finally getting excited about joining the political discourse, for being hopeful, for thinking people and Peoples all over the world should and could live in peace and quiet. Critiquing policy is constructive. Digging at hope is petty. In an ironic sort of way, I find it naive.

The most practical knock at my generation seems to be that we’re lazy. We don’t feel like we need to work anymore.

But that’s not it. It’s just that the “Make something out of yourself” argument doesn’t work anymore. I, for one, will not work because that’s how I become something. I don’t need to become something. I am something. I work because valuable work befits somethings like me.

Treating me like nothing- for example, giving me answers like “Because I said so” or “You’ll understand when you’re older” just put me off. “I don’t know,” works much better. I’m much more likely to acknowledge my own imperfection if you admit yours.

Teachers, parents, bosses- they need to be better now. Much better. They have to be honest, non-corrupt, with integrity. They need to make information meaningful, to present it as valuable. To make learning exciting. To talk “to,” not “down to.”

But here’s the thing, and this is important- To the generation frustrated with its young people:

It’s your fault. You finally realized that it is your job to love your kids no matter what. Once they’re your kids- you love ‘em. My parents make sure to hang up every phone call with us with “I love you.” How many parents used to do that?

So I’d like to make one small request: Quit throwing us off your shoulders!

You put us up here to look out hopefully to the world and to ourselves. You taught us that we are entitled. That everyone is entitled. You taught us that our worth is not contingent upon anything. If for that your life becomes more complicated, motivating us becomes more difficult, satisfying us becomes near impossible, then get to work at learning to match the work of your own hands.

But as you struggle along with us, please know this: Self-worth is the greatest gift you could ever have given us. You have provided us with the confidence and faith, the hope, determination and even the awareness that we still have value when we screw up, that will take humanity to worlds and levels it has never known before.

Give us time- we will learn to shed the kinks and the laziness and the scraps of arrogance that come with the merits of “The Age of Entitlement.”

But please: Quit throwing us off your shoulders. You put us up here- don’t throw us back down.

It’s an important time of year right now, smack in between Mother’s and Father’s Day- high time for sons, daughters and the owners of Hallmark. To my parents, who always make me feel deserving and loved- Thank you. I respect and appreciate you so much. To generations of mothers and fathers that made us and brought us here- Thank you too… And quit criticizing your own good work!

Hi Everyone,

A happy week to you!

I am doing some work for a new project called Jewish Climate Initiative- a non-profit dedicated to developing a Jewish response to the global climate crisis by consulting ancient Jewish ethics, mobilizing our nation’s passion for social action and directing our abilities in science and technology toward solutions in sustainable living.

I’d like to refer you to a post I just wrote for the initiative’s blog, Climate of Change, called “Don’t Fall into the Doomsday Trap.” I’d really like your feedback on this one- sometimes I write something and am not super positive I agree with it (odd as that might sound). So check it out and let me know! (You can leave me comments here on Unpacked (if your comments are bad) or at Climate of Change (if your comments are good.) (Just kidding- you can leave me any type of feedback anywhere).

Also- I highly recommend subscribing to Climate of Change-the founders of Jewish Climate Initiative, Rabbi Julian Sinclair and Michael Kagan are pretty brilliant guys with credentials up the wazoo, and they always have interesting, creative (and well-written) things to say- so have a look! (As a by-the-way, “Wazoo” originally meant trap door. It’s also a nickname for Washington State University. Just thought you’d be interested…)

The post begins like this:

Environmental sensitivity has a trap: Actions too often become a “Fight Against.” I stop acting “in order to,” but rather, “to beware of”- whether that “Beware of” is carbon emissions, pollution, pesticides or the like.

Not that caution is a bad place from where to act- crises like climate change give us the urgency that (hopefully) makes us change. But that urgency should not only encourage us to ward off disasters, but to re-examine our experience in this world and discover what it is we are missing that brought about these crises in the first place.

Let’s take eating local foods as an example: Click Here for the Full Article

I look forward to hearing from you,

Yannai

It recently occurred to me: What unites us most as humans, is that we read in the bathroom.

I’ll explain:

I was watching our cat, Seamus, go to the bathroom the other day (His litter box is in our bathroom and we were going together).

Watching and pondering as one may do in that intimate space, it hit me: Seamus does not read in the bathroom.

Now I know what your thinking: He does read in the bathroom, just not in front of me.

But I have never seen any magazines- “Life as a Pet,” “Jerusalem Cat,” or “MouseHunter,”- or how-to books like “How to get the most out of your master” or “Who Says they’re the Owners” left beside Seamus’s litter box. So if he does read, he never leaves any evidence behind.

Others might argue that what makes us human is language or making tools. But other animals do that stuff. As far as I know, though, we are the only species to look for entertainment during our performance of such a basic bodily need.

It is amazing how badly we want to utilize every second of the day- to make the best of a few quiet minutes. We’re so determined to use this time in the bathroom to acquire knowledge, extra factoids, to be entertained. We’re a species with a real distaste for wasted time.

I know that when I am hard at work, I am very excited to go to the bathroom. In the bathroom, I have completed numerous non-fiction works, handfulls of issues of Backpacker Magazine and more. Sometimes, I find myself drinking coffee not to wake up, but to ensure that I am granted that hearty five minutes of quality reading time.

I remember when we were in the backcountry of the Pacific Crest Trail, spending three months in the wilderness and relieving ourselves outside everyday, that I would get very excited for those nights we’d spend in town, when I could go to the bathroom and read.

Perhaps we even say, “Go to the bathroom,” because we’re invested in the whole experience of the bathroom- the excretory one and the library one.

I guess it is a bit disturbing that we can’t just be happy with letting our body do its thing. Maybe we’re not just a species with a distaste for wasted time- maybe we have a distaste for quiet time by ourselves. In theory, I should really be okay without being entertained for a few minutes. Seamus, after all, is perfectly happy to go and be done with it.

I think it would be a healthy exercise for me, every once in a while, to go to the bathroom, and just “be.” Maybe I’ll meditate upon my body’s awareness of how to take care of itself. There’s definitely what to be said about savoring everything we do, even at the expense of accomplishing more.

In any case, I think we’re cool. Cool and interesting. Probably pretty funny to our colleagues in the animal kingdom.

I wonder sometimes what Seamus must think of us and the way we live. Maybe he’s an anthropologist in disguise?

But human anthropologist or just plain cat who thinks we people are a bit off, I am sure that when we leave for work, Seamus gets right up here to the computer, and writes for his award-winning blog for house pets, “The Oddities of my Human Roommates.”

I live in an amazing place.

Israel is a whole to do. But when it comes down to it, it’s just an amazing place.

I imagine that over the course of the year, as they watch us stumble and bumble along, six million souls can’t help but look down at us here in Israel and ask each other sheepishly, “Is this is the best we can do?”

And like our ancestors in heaven, many of us six million souls still living and residing in Israel can’t help but ask, “Is this the best we can do?” (more…)