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Happy Days Are Here Again? Not Yet. But Look Up at the Moon

Written by: Eric Weis on Oct 14, 2008 3:26 PM EDT

Linked to groups: The Passaic County Green Party, Pequannock DFA, Passaic County DFA, BlueWaveNJ, DFA County Committee Project, NJ for Democracy

Linked to campaigns: Obama for America

Did you breathe a little easier yesterday?  Stock market up 11%.  No blaring catastrophes on the news. The G7 ministers offer soothing advice and common action. John McCain is telling his crowds to cool it. North Korea will let nuclear inspectors in.  Obama revealed a fresh economic recovery plan.  Paul Krugman earned the Nobel Prize in Economics.  Jewish people are celebrating their Thanksgiving (aka "Sukkot").


This time is perhaps was the "pause that refreshes".  Remember that line?  You could feel good, while killing yourself with a nicotine addiction foisted on us by a pernicious tobacco industry.  The trouble is, the tobacco nightmare is not over, and neither is ours.

What is the measure of real happiness?  For me, it is the feeling that my life has counted, that the world will be a better place as a result of my existence and that I have contributed something to humanity.  On a personal level, it is having an expectation that my kids will have a better life than I did.
 
On the first score, I am working on it.  I won't know the outcome until my time is done.  On the second subject, the evidence is that the answer is not positive. Our children will face a more difficult world, will have to work harder, and will be dealing with an earth environment which is changing very quickly in ways bound to affect our own biology.  That's why I am not humming "Happy Days Are Here Again".

So what can offset these pressures and challenges?

One thing that has always engaged humanity is discovery and exploration. Monday was Columbus Day, an event which celebrates a momentous turn in human history when the Old World encountered the New World in a way which was well-chronicled and reproducible (unlike the earlier Viking contacts).

I grew up not in the age of Columbus, nor in the years when Europeans (for better or worse) expanded their influence to all corners of the known world. My great-grandparents saw humans figure out how to motor from place to place.  My grandparents lived in the time when people duplicated the feats of birds, and started to master the skies.

Our parents grew up as TV changed our world.  The baby boomer generation watched humans leave the earth and touch another celestial object, the moon.  A younger generation has seen computers and the Internet change lives, just as significantly as the horseless carriage did 100 years ago.

What is the next frontier?  What can change our perspective so that the mundane does not swamp us? Is life only about the economy or the next flare-up, as one group of humans attacks another?  Are we doomed to eternal struggle over our daily bread?

The earth is a great frontier.  We have demonstrated a proficiency in living on the earth, and living off its resources.  In so doing, we have been disturbing it, from the dawn of the industrial revolution right down to today.  Creationists can argue over the dinosaurs and evolution, but we can observe massive icebergs calving in the Arctic and Antarctic, and a manatee found swimming off the shore of Cape Cod this weekend.  These facts pose an existential question.  Can we live with the earth?

Last night I had the pleasure of sitting outside, under a full moon.  It is the midpoint of a lunar month, from new moon to new moon.   The ides of October coincide with a lunar event known as the harvest moon.  Yesterday I harvested some tomatoes from the garden.  And I am now enjoying Sukkot, the Jewish harvest festival.

It strikes me that we will live with the earth, if we can simply look at it in terms of international, global, human security.  We all need food and sustenance.  To harvest, one must sow, reap, work.  And the rain must come, something that is beyond our individual control.  But it is within our collective control to change the earth so that rains come at the wrong times, or in the wrong places or with the wrong amounts.  Witness the devastating floods and storms of this past year.

So consider the next frontier, earth.  It is not a new concept.  But here are two things we can think about.

What did you do today to live with the earth?  Did you take a walk?  Look at the sky?  Work outside? Use less electricity?  

And as far as politics go, what did you do today to support the green candidate?  The one who is resisting the forces behind drilling for more hydrocarbons which have been so preciously stored by the earth over millions of years.  The one whose followers do NOT chant "Drill, Baby, Drill".  The one who suggested that we check our tire pressures (a VERY sensible suggestion).

Well, here is what I did.  I got another Obama for President lawn sign, and put it up today.  Obama has the outlook of one who has discovered and explored; it is his character by nature and nurture.  He may not simply be a tree hugger, and the environment is not the only reason to support him.  But it is a damn good one. In fact, an existential one.

Do something to support Obama on the harvest moon before the next Presidential election.  If you are not involved in the Great Schlep (go ahead, google it), just talk to a neighbor.  And remember to look up tonight.

- ArcticEric

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Location: Wayne, NJ 07470

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