[Soil & Land - X]
Did you hear about the deforestation rates in the Amazon? The erosion of global topsoil? The extinction rates? The melting permafrost? Our relationship with the planet—nah, that’s too generic and big—our relationship with the natural resources in our vicinity, is absurd. We ignore it, expect it to serve us, and assume it will always be there as it always has been. It’s absurd.
Albert Camus came to mind as I was reading another article about another ecological disaster. He gives helpful categories, I think, in moving forward.
The conservative, according to Camus, goes to great lengths to keep things the way they are, to deny information that may challenge current paradigms and put pressure on the status quo.
The revolutionary, who is the ultimate progressive, I guess, wants to blow the whole thing up Information that undermines the current mode of operation can’t come fast enough. Angst is fuel and destruction is better than no action.
But the rebel finds measurable and constructive action right where they are. The conservative and revolutionary, in a way, are committed to the same thing: destruction at all costs. The rebel is committed to what lasts, to preserving life, and not giving the rights of making meaning and framing the problems away to those hellbent on destruction.
Every time we make decisions to contribute (not extract), compliment (not contest), and care for (not destroy) the land and resources around us, we are being rebellious! For me, each time I fill another wheelbarrow full of compost, roll it to my garden, and apply it to my beds, my inner-rebel smiles.
