106. Us, the busy universe

There’s always something. Always a need or an unfilled want. Always. You can’t escape it. We have stuff that we have to take care of constantly and forever. Time doesn’t stop for anyone or anything. Rich or poor, fat or thin, human is human, and part of being human is being busy, because everything is busy all the time.

Sometimes it blows my mind how occupied we have to be. Even when we stand still, we’re busy little machines. Sometimes I wish I could just pause it all and let the moment last a little longer, a purely stationary sensation. I’d like to actually do nothing for a while.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the sense of accomplishment as much as the next guy. It feels good to finish things. It feels good to work for something. But I don’t remember signing up for a life of work.

I don’t want to sound lazy. To be honest, none of us are lazy. How can we be? Right now we’re hurtling through space at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. We’re busy even if we’re just sitting down reading text off a computer screen. You think it’s easy to be a biological machine? We’re full of moving parts, and those parts need maintenance.

We have to take care of our bodies. We’re thrust into this world, given all the possibility for greatness, but required to monitor and care for our physical selves. That said, we ARE our bodies, not simply conductors, not puppeteers pulling strings. Part of life is being aware of your body and its process of birth, growth, and death. This thing doesn’t just drive itself.

And so I eat. I sleep. I don’t have a car or bike so I walk a lot. I look both ways before jaywalking. I have good hygiene habits, mostly. For this I still suffer from allergies and bad teeth. I have to tend to those concerns. We all do. The body does not sit idly even if we do. I have to shave. I have to suffer headaches. I have to stay hydrated. I’ll have to get health insurance, eventually. We’re machines from the get-go and all machines need constant maintenance, even the most well-oiled machines among us.

I’m not complaining. Get that thought out of your head right now. I love being alive. As Carl Sagan would put it, I’ve “humaned” from the universe and to the universe I give my greatest gratitude. Life is beautiful. It’s just… Mysteriously calculated.

Maybe this is a bit extreme, but imagine a world where everything was just fine how it was now. Imagine if nature in all its infinite wisdom came to the realization that everything was great. Why expand any further? Are we part of a giant masterpiece awaiting a final stroke of the paintbrush? Is there ever a final stroke? Like Valéry said, is the poem ever truly finished? At what point should we be content and take a break?

Thing is, I don’t think it can stop. There would be no NOW without an overarching cycle of Start and Finish. Even that idea of “Finish” is an illusion. Heck, even “Start” is an illusion. Things simply ARE, no matter what form they take. We imagine we are unique because we teach ourselves that this is true but when boiled down to the basics, we’re the same stuff as all stuff, we never “started,” we just continued from where we were to now in a different way, and there is no “finish line,” just another way of being the universe.

The universe cannot stand still because it knows nothing else. Everything is a circle, a cycle, a revolution, an orbit, a whirlpool. Everything is made so that it can spin apart and be made again. If we stopped things now, there’d never be anything new, and I think the universe likes to make new things.

I guess what I’m most baffled about is how puzzling it all is. There are no answers. No one knows what happens after we die. No one knows why the universe exists. No one will ever know. And this mystery is true about everything, not just us. I’m talking about the mystery of hummingbirds and galaxies. Are we just a swirling mass of recyclable space dust? Are we cogs in an even greater machine? Are we anything at all?

We don’t know.

But we act like we do. We act like there’s an answer waiting. The white light at the end of the tunnel. That’s good and all, but forgive me if it defies my personal logic that I have to wait until I’ve croaked to find out what it was all about. In acting like there’s an answer waiting, we have given in to the machinery metaphor. We are part of a greater plan. We are on a path. We are born this way.

We often compare ourselves to rats who expect cheese at the end of the maze. And yeah, I recognize that not everyone agrees with the rat idea. Rats are gross. I agree. But the cheese part is accurate. We have this great idea about what this cheese is. Even the most atheist of the rats sees the end of the maze, even if there’s no cheese there, there’s still a conclusion. For me, that’s not enough.

Maybe I’ve been listening to a little too much Carl Sagan lately, but that all feels so strange to me. We’ve never been separate enough from the universe to expect something next. What comes next is we keep being what we’ve always been, just through a different lens. We are the universe. We are a way for the universe to understand itself, like a mirror, and when we move on from this biological form, perhaps we’ll return as another mirror on another planet, or maybe we’ll just become the planet.

I think that’s kind of beautiful. Reminds me that our time as humans is temporary, but our role as the universe could be forever.

How it came that we personified that concept by anthropomorphizing an ethereal creator in charge of everything is a little silly. I like the idea. I mean, it still fits. God is the Universe, the Universe is God. Tomato, Tomatoh.

How we let religion turn into violence is baffling, a very human thing to do. I do not want to be associated with a religion that has killed anyone, and this is why I feel more connected to the universe I literally came from, not the creative impulse of an omnipresent being. We made religion then let religion turn us against each other. There is death in the universe, as well, but when a star dies it’s not because the star believed in a different universe. It’s because it was time for the star’s energy to become something else. When I die, I don’t want it to be because (or for) my belief. I want it to just be another moment in an infinite string of moments of being a small piece of my bigger self, the Universe.

Anyway, it seems like the only seed of truth that’s permeated the collective chaos that is our religious disagreement is to love and live true.

Love and live true. Yet, we complicate things.

We complicate humankind when there’s already so many other things to take care of first, not just our biological bodies but the fallout of forming society. From birth defects to taking care of our ill to feeding the hungry to stopping violence due to inequality. Major problems. As humans, we’re pretty screwed up.

You don’t see a herd of lions forming a jury to convict someone of vehicular lionslaughter.

Society is such a fascinatingly wonderful and equally terrible idea. It’s this partially agreed-upon role-playing experiment that persists on a daily basis by sheer luck alone. I know that’s edging away from what Carl Sagan would say about everything being stupid chance, but I guess what I’m trying to say is there’s absolutely no need for people to have conflict, yet we never seem to learn. We’re basically the universe having a temper tantrum with a part of itself it’s not very fond of. We’re the acne of the universe and we’re being popped like zits.

We can do better. We don’t have to be a blemish.

I think we’re stressed out. I think we’re taking ourselves too seriously. We’re complex enough without all this additional weight on our shoulders. We’re lucky. We got the cool brains of the animal kingdom and we’ve built rockets and vaccines and hot water faucets. We have kick-ass language skills. We’re goddamn awesome with these brains. And they take care of a lot of stuff for us without us even thinking about it. We eat when we’re hungry and sleep when we’re tired, but for the most part our brains have things under control. We forget that. We treat ourselves like we’re vessels carrying souls, not bodies being bodies. Imagine living internally rather than externally. Try to think with your whole body, not just your brain. It’s hard to do. We’ve removed ourselves from our bodies, removing ourselves from the universe itself (or at least attempting to), and it’s stressful to go it on your own, isn’t it? Here we are, humans, floating alone in the river of time. Rather than being part of the shore, we invent a figure to stand on the shore and judge us from afar. Why add that burden to an already skewed sense of reality?

I’m stressed out just thinking about it.

We’re using our brains in such strange ways. Sagan said we are a way for the universe to know itself. Yeah, we think about the universe a lot, but usually we’re just thinking about how our hair looks. I think we’ve let ourselves get distracted by the most bizarre things, like cats chasing lasers. Stranger still, we rarely take a step back to consider these things from other points of view, like the cat who knows it will never catch the laser but scurries after it whenever it flashes near.

This thought was about wondering why the universe doesn’t stop. This is a big question. Comparatively  it’s like asking the snail why it doesn’t go any faster. It’s restricted by the laws of its form. The universe is restricted in the same way. So are we. The universe can’t stop and I know this. Birth and death and renewal is all the universe knows. Anything that comes to be in its image will know this pattern. This is the way of things. I suppose what I’m wondering is whether or not the universe can control itself.

If we are the universe thinking about itself, than we’ve had plenty of deep thoughts like this. We’ve seen out into the universe, into ourselves, with telescopes and microscopes, and we’ve likely only scratched the surface of the complexity of it all. Maybe we just don’t know enough. Maybe we’re not going to be the species that gives the universe its answer. Maybe we’re not even close.

When–and if–we ever get there, I wonder if the universe will stop growing. I wonder if the cycle would stop. Kind of like how when you see the secret of a magic trick, you can’t stop seeing the hidden wires. Through all this violence and foolishness, however, I hope the end is worth it. I hope humanity turns all this bloodshed into a profound lesson, like a Tarantino movie with a Wes Anderson ending.

Imagine not worrying about your immune system. Or drinking enough water. Hard to do. We’re born into a biology we can’t control and we make the best with what we’ve got. We shouldn’t expect anything else, really. To be born is to die. There can’t be an alternative. If the universe didn’t work the way it did, it wouldn’t exist, not in the way we understand it now, that is. Our brains are galaxies and galaxies spin out eventually, too. We can’t picture a non-universe in the same way we can’t picture being a non-human. Who knows? Maybe the universe has headaches, menstrual cramps, growing pains, and self-esteem issues like the rest of us. We’re all one, after all, and that’ll never stop.

98. Hoarders

There used to be just two of us. Remember those days?

I was the hunter. You, the gatherer.

Now I knew you had a propensity for collecting things. It was your nature. While I was out skinning sabre-toothed tigers, you were filling half the cave with acorns and wild berries so that we would have sustenance through the winter when the tigers migrated. There was a need to collect a lot of things. We survived because of the Gatherer’s want for many.

These days, we don’t need to fill pantries with pounds of loose nuts and berries. For many, all it takes is a trip to the corner market to get food, if not ten steps to the refrigerator. We don’t really gather the way we used to. Instead of food, we go out into the world to gather money. Gathering is also no longer a gendered term. Man or woman, we’re all suckers in the same rat race. That refrigerator won’t pay for itself.

The point is, gathering is in our nature.

I say this because now instead of using the term “gatherer,” we use “hoarder.”

There are people out there with huge collections of polished antique silverware, but we call them Collectors. It’s the one’s with hallways lined with towers of newspapers that we call Hoarders. Simply having a lot of something doesn’t make it a “collection,” though. A billion bath-toy ducks could even mark you as a Hoarder, because who the hell would want to keep a billion toy ducks around? If you’re confused about the distinction between Collector and Hoarder, just know that the Hoarder’s house will probably have more cats in it.

We make them out to be crazy. We treat them like they’re breaking some human law, when in fact it is the accuser that should be on trial. We chastise them for gathering supplies for their cave. It is the accuser that is fighting human nature by shaping their lives after an IKEA catalogue.

I don’t mean to say that having a clean and tidy house is a bad thing. In fact there are health benefits related with keeping one’s house in good shape. If we have gained anything from our loss of gathering desires, it’s longer lives.

I’d argue that there are many of us “evolved” folks that still gather in small ways. Books. We gather books. Women, you gather shoes. Gamers gather achievement points. We gather photographs. A lot of us have trinkets like porcelain angels or cow figurines or old WWII propoganda posters, things we clutter our shelves with. Things we consider extensions of ourselves.

Different, of course, than the man with a thousand ashtrays. Or the woman still in possession of every article of clothing she’s ever owned. These are the hoarders. But if I have every National Geographic magazine, I’m a Collector. I suppose it has to do with value, both monetary and social. We all have this pretty clear idea of something with value and something without, though obviously there are some differences of opinion.

To the Hoarders, be careful. You don’t live in a cave. You’ll survive the winter. You don’t need to have a thousand of anything. To everyone else, do not point fingers. A Hoarder is more human than you are, they just need a little coaxing out of the cave.

58. Driving again

A little over a week after coming back to the States, I found myself the designated driver, and my seven and a half month streak of not driving a car was over.

A while ago I was having a nostalgic conversation about the pleasures of driving, reminiscing about cruising the freeway with the windows down, some Red Hot Chili Peppers blaring on the stereo, the waves of some sandy beach on the horizon.

Driving can be therapeutic.

I remember this one time I went on an eighteen hour round-trip drive north from Santa Rosa simply to clear my head. There are countless meandering trips I’ve taken with friends in my old beat-up Cherokee, each of which holds a special place in my heart.

Driving can also be a hassle.

I don’t even want to think about how much money I’ve put into filling gas tanks or repairing engines or replacing brake lights. I get a little sick to the stomach when I recall all those wasted hours in the DMV. It’s never fun to drive in the rain. Overall, it seems the parking tickets and registration fees simply aren’t worth it.

Plus, most places, you’ve got busses and subways and bicycle-friendly streets that offer plenty of alternative routes.

But this conversation got me thinking…

Despite the negative aspects of driving, there’s still no replacing the escapism that a car supplies. With a car, you’ve got access to America’s highways, spread like a nervous system between all the major cities and landmarks. You can make your own schedule and plot your own route to anywhere.

I love trains and airplanes and all manner of alternative transportation, but none of it can compare to the sensation of driving a car. Unfortunately, this is exactly what Ford, Carmax, and Chevron (et al.) want you to feel. Good car advertisements turn that incomparable sensation into revenue, and we’re suckers for it.

I mean, I’ve had “road trip” on my bucket list since I got my license.

So what does it feel like to drive again after seven and a half months? It’s as easy as hopping back on a bicycle. You never really forget how to drive. My hands found the ten and two position, my foot remembered the press of the gas pedal, and soon enough I was cruising one-handed with the whole world at my dashboard.

Driving again after a long break reawakens in you all those old dreams and plans, makes you want to keep driving through the night to discover what secret treasures await you on the sidelines of some forgotten highway.

Yes, fuel emissions are bad. Yes, gas prices suck.

But I have to admit, I’m already looking forward to the next time I get behind the wheel.

55. Allergies

This is a thought about allergies, but let me start at the beginning.

I loathe sneezing, and I don’t use the word loathe for nothing. This is true hatred. If this were one of those situations where I could go back in time and kill the one who invented sneezing, I’d do it, and I’d make it hurt. “How could you do this to me?” I’d ask them, before ending them once and for all.

“I’m sorry,” they’d say. “I thought you’d enjoy expelling saliva from your mouth at forty miles-per-hour. I thought you’d like losing all your basic motor skills. Who wouldn’t enjoy watery eyes, a runny nose, and a sore throat? I mean, honestly, I thought sneezing was fun.”

No! No! No!

The trouble with sneezing, for me, is its connection to allergies. I’m one of the many unlucky folks who endure regular battles with allergies every year. Regardless of any positive healthy habits or changes in diet, the allergens find a way in, and even though these allergens are basically harmless everyday substances, my body freaks out like a New Orleans planning committee that forgot to order Mardis Gras beads.

Allergies make no sense to me. What troubles me the most about them is the fact that everyone has different allergies. So it’s really the luck of the genetic draw to see what random substances or foods will leave you with hives, swelling, and possible gruesome death.

Thanks evolution!

Our body absorbs plenty of crappy things every day. We’ve got pollution in the air that sneaks into our lungs. We eat chemically enhanced food that clogs up our stomachs. We watch mindless celebrity gossip on television that clutters up our minds. Yet, for the most part, none of that evokes an allergic reaction. It’s as if our bodies are better suited to breath smog than get a sniff of dandelion fluff.

People are allergic to peanuts, latex, insect stings, milk, sunlight, and water. Yeah, that’s right. Water. It just doesn’t seem fair, does it? The human body does many amazing things, buts its flaws and weaknesses astound. We may be Goliaths in the realm of evolution, but we’ve got plenty of Davids to worry about.

My mom, despite her love for them, became allergic to clams. Note the phrasing: became allergic. What was once perfectly enjoyable and delicious became a death sentence. Why does this happen? One day your body may decide to reject any number of things. You’ll be going on with your business as usual, eating strawberries, let’s say, only to end up with a swollen throat and rashes all over your body. Doesn’t matter how much you liked strawberries before because now they’re at the top of your immune system’s most wanted list.

We are such strange creatures.

I’m a dust and pollen guy, myself. Set me outside in a park and I’ll be chained to a box of tissue. I’m also a heavy sneezer, meaning I’ll go through at least a dozen obnoxious sneezes before I can get ahold of myself. God forbid I’m ever driving when allergies strike, because when they do, I don’t just need Claritin, I need to be quarantined.

Maybe this is part of the plan. Maybe we’re meant to have these weaknesses. I’ve shared my two cents about the deficiencies of our teeth, coming to the conclusion that there are simply some parts of the human body that have yet to evolve.

In the case of allergies, it almost feels like our bodies have some unspoken agreement with Mother Nature. For every billion people we populate the earth with, we must accept a million new allergens to even the odds. For every ten births, we lose someone to a peanut allergy. For every thirty, we get a fatal anaphylactic reaction to penicillin.

I’m not sure what to conclude about allergies, other than they suck.

I appreciate that the body has an immune system that reacts quickly to invasions from malicious bacteria and the like. When it works, it works. That’s awesome. Keep it up. But am I really going to have sneezing fits every time I walk outside to enjoy the spring? Will my mom never again taste a good clam chowder?

Probably not. David always wins in any rendition of the Goliath tale.

52. Whale watching

How often do you think about whales? I’ll tell you right now you don’t think about whales enough. Strange, too, considering even the smallest of them is still around 11 feet long. They inhabit every ocean. They number in the millions. The biggest of them, the Blue Whale, floats around at nearly 100 feet long, often traveling alone, an enormous peaceful beast that could swallow humans whole but feeds instead on tiny crustaceans called krill. We take for granted the fact that whales would be a terrifying force if they could fly.

Did you know that Sperm Whales have the largest brain of any animal?

They’re warm-blooded mammals, evolved from land-dwelling creatures of yore, insulated by blubber (one of my favorite words ever) that lets them sink to ocean depths where the sun don’t shine. They’ve got lung access through holes in the top of their heads, so they stay mostly submerged while breathing, first sneezing out the water that filled in the blowhole while they were swimming. How cool is that?

Did you know that Orca Whales are considered apex predators? That means they have no natural predator. At over twenty feet long, you better hope that they never figure out a way to stage a global uprising. Who knows if all those Orcas we’ve got caged up in theme parks aren’t being captured and posted there on purpose to learn our weaknesses.

Did you know that whales never sleep?

Research has shown that their brains have similar structures as those of humans, which means they learn and cooperate and behave quite similarly to us. It’s even suggested that they’re capable of existential thoughts and emotions. I’ve always thought of whales as these secretly wise creatures with all the answers to the universe, sharing the truth of existence in their mournful whale songs that we simply can’t understand.

Whales aren’t the only under-appreciated creatures on the planet, but I think they’re the ones we overlook the most. I’ve never gone whale watching. The closest I’ve come to one is watching Planet Earth. This is a shame. They are such beautiful, majestic, mysterious creatures and we pretend like they’re not even there.

We forget how small we are sometimes, how there are other creatures out there that are, in my opinion, a lot more fascinating than some of the people I meet.

44. Water

Did anyone else actually hate drinking water when they were a kid? I don’t remember this being an especially long phase, but I certainly recall a period of my life when drinking water was about as fun as eating vegetables. Didn’t matter if I’d spent all day running around sweating, or if I was deathly thirsty—water was the last thing on my mind. Water had no taste, no color, no fizz, no sweet odor, no life.

Water was boring.

Of course now, grown up, I recognize the value of good, clean water. I’m lucky that such a substance spews regularly from the tap in the kitchen. I drink water much more often now, and the taste, while indescribable, is refreshing in the way that a good breath of air is refreshing. The body wants it (being, as it is, composed of 60% water) and the body’s happy when it gets it, so that’s all that matters.

I’ve come to appreciate water even more now that I’ve travelled the world a bit and been places where drinking tap water was a health risk and paying for bottled was the only access you had. Good luck getting ice in your drink.

It still boggles my mind that we live on a planet that’s 75% water and we still have a problem with getting people clean water to drink. Yes, that 75% is basically all salt water, but don’t we have the technology to desalinize it? We can put a robot on Mars but we’re still letting people die of thirst?

Shipping out bottled water to the billion people without drinkable water won’t exactly benefit the planet, since that much plastic would just settle into the environment about as nicely as a tumor. Plus it’s not like that’s a long-term solution. We’d have to send out another billion bottles the next day. All we’d be doing is keeping Aquafina in business and diverting money from water sanitation and distribution.

So what do we do?

Conserve water. Guarantee water rights. Prioritize human health.

Most of all: make sure everyone everywhere grows up knowing that water is crucial to your health, that it is not to be overlooked simply because it is tasteless and clear, and that you will die of thirst before you die of hunger. And Gatorade is not a substitute.

So if you’re an athlete, or if you’re a busy mother, or you’re often found hiking up mountains, or you’re planning a night of drinking on the town, or you’re taking the dog for a walk, or you’re any living human being, then get some water in your body. It might not be the most exciting drink in the world, but it’s the most useful.

Someday I hope everyone has easy access to good water.

In the meantime, if you’ve got a kid that thinks water is dull and prefers juice or cola, remind them how lucky they are that they get any water at all. Now, about getting them to eat their vegetables… That’s another battle entirely.

41. Snails

Maybe you’ve heard this one before: A guy steps out of his house to grab the newspaper, and he sees a snail on the porch, sliming up his headlines. So he picks up the snail and tosses it away. Two years later, guy hears a knock on his door and answers it, but there’s no one there. Minute later, another knock, and this time the guy looks down to see the snail. The snail looks up at him and says, “Hey! What the hell was that for?”

My point is snails are stupendously slow creatures.

Obviously they’ve got different priorities than us, but I can’t help but marvel over their slow-motion existence in this fast-paced world. They dally along using muscle strength and mucus secretion, altogether oblivious of the world around them, like old ladies in the grocery market (minus the ooze). Did you know they only move one centimeter per second?

So what do these shelled slugs even do? Why have them around?

Gardeners hate them because snails will stage hostile takeovers at any available garden. Roots, stems, fruits and leaves will feel the wrath of the hungry snail’s gooey radula (a rough ribbon of tiny teeth). Did you know snails eat limestone and other minerals in order to strengthen their shells? So of course the gardeners set out poison to kill them and wrap their tree trunks in copper lining to keep the snails at bay.

To be fair, the snails are just doing what they’re made to do: crawl around and eat things. Which I suppose is not a bad purpose to have in life for a creature that takes an entire afternoon just to cross the sidewalk. At least the snail has a purpose. It knows where it fits in the world. So what if I’m little and slow? At least I’m doing something with my life, it says.

Yet we still don’t give snails much respect. I remember the first (and only) time I ever poured salt onto a live snail. The effect absolutely terrified me. I don’t recommend you ever try it, even if you are a vindictive gardener out for revenge for last year’s crop failures. Imagine the same thing happening to you! We’re all guilty of crushing at least a dozen snails in our lifetime, since they’re not quite evolved enough to steer clear of the sidewalks. And who hasn’t plucked one from the ground to ogle at it up close and watch its slimy little body wriggle? They are such strange looking creatures. Maybe we have shell envy.

Did you know snails mate for hours at a time?

I’m not saying we all need to go out and adopt a snail, or that the French need to stop eating them, but I think we ought to take a moment to consider what can be learned from the slow-moving species. They don’t rush things. They don’t mean any harm. They scoot along this Earth at their own pace and take whatever’s given to them. They don’t fight or hunt. They don’t sting or poison. They’re just squishy and weird, but they’ve got their role figured out, probably more than some of us humans do.

We should take our time. We should mean no harm. Maybe we’ll come across our proverbial garden someday and know what it is we were meant to do with our lives.

13. Litter

You know those warning signs you sometimes see on highways that proclaim massive fines for littering? They’re not joking around. I had a friend go home with a $300 ticket for dropping a cigarette out her window. Sure the ensuing bitching and moaning lasted for days, but the bottom line reality is that she should’ve known better. Cars come with ashtrays.

Here’s the trouble with litter, though. It’s not a universal concern. There are some countries where litter is almost normal because there are enough street-cleaners employed to make even the busiest, messiest streets go from apocalyptic to spotless. I’ve seen it. Then there are other countries that have one trash can per thousand people, which means holding onto your trash is a commitment and the urge to litter feels a lot like holding your pee for too long.

In the States, I think people litter for different reasons. One, they’ll likely never be held accountable for it. Two, it’s empowering to leave a little trash here and there. Three, it’s easier. Four, they’re of the opinion that society is already crumbling, anyway. Five, they simply don’t care.

I feel guilty even if I spit chewed bubble-gum into a bush. Not to say I’m completely innocent; it takes some aging and wisdom to recognize littering as a bad thing. As kids we’ll toss aside anything we’re not invested in, regardless, and hopefully we had parents around to pick up our candy wrappers and juice boxes. As teenagers, we validate a certain amount of littering because we see others doing it, too, and besides, at home we probably recycle, so, like, whatever.

Eventually we see the way trashy gutters, filthy shorelines, and abandoned refuse really detract from the beauty of our world. At some point we (hopefully) become those people who will pick up the garbage they see on the beach, or chase after that runaway plastic bag. I know it takes effort and garbage can be sticky, but the redemption you feel from cleaning even just one piece of litter can really make your day, especially if you know other people saw you do it. I always think: Fuck yes I’m saving the world. What are you doing?

The sad thing is that even if we don’t litter, even if we recycle, we’re still part of a global concern of too much waste and not enough space. Even the trash cans that keep our rubbish in order, they’re emptied into vast landfills, which are more or less just big piles of litter. I don’t know how we’re supposed to solve this problem. It’s too big for me to wrap my head around. Trash happens.

But in the meantime, please don’t leave your cigarette boxes in the gutter. No one wants to see a used condom in the park. If you didn’t want your receipt, then why’d you take one in the first place? Think before you litter next time. It’s an awful habit and it’s not helping anyone. Yes, we’re a wasteful, filthy species. Yes, we’re doomed to bury ourselves in our own garbage. But for the time being, can you not speed up the process with your negligence? Some of us want to enjoy the world while it lasts.