Environmentalism

Judging by organizations like green peace and the pervasive belief in the stereotype of environmentally conscious beings as granola bar crunching, birkenstock wearing tree huggers, it's safe to say that Environmentalists are a very passionate, vocal bunch.

In my own experience, volunteering at the environmental center in NJ in high school, enviromental issues have inspired me to great passion. 

Now, nearly 8 years after that stint in the environmental center, I find myself on a train from Chennai to Bangalore. Near Vellore,  we passed what is now a common sight in rural India. A dry river bed. Bone dry. Vegetated by those familiar thorny bushes (which, incidentally,  are not a native plant but imported from Australia or some such country) , ridden with bullock cart tracks and marked by makeshift cricket pitches, deserted in the wake of the nation's victory last night.

Now this river bed is a 500 m stretch wedged in between 2 villages. Who knows for how many years its run dry?

I passed this scene in my ultra-modern (for India) air conditioned train in about 4 seconds, but it made an impression on me. It made me wonder why such obvious enviromental degredation and tragedy is largely neglected as an issue by the news media and general public?

I have a few thoughts - and normally this would be a full post but as I am posting this from my phone, I'll have to keep it short to keep from getting texters thumb.

1) The majority of the educated in India live the fast paced life of the urban dweller & havent seen enough of rural India and nature to realize what has happened
2) Unlike nations like the US, most of South India has been converted to settled lands years and years ago. There were no virgin forests in anyones recent written or oral histories, let alone videos or photographs. So people dont see the difference.
3) There is no culture of environmental appreciation. Even in the Ramayana, the forest was a place of hardship, trial and pennance home only to devout hrishis who spent their. time praying for release and fearsome. rakshashas. Compare this to the American celebration of the great outdoors, where hardship = the pioneering spirit and traditional. values.
4) We are a culture of society and not individuals. Where is the chance of Man vs.  Wild when he has his whole clan backing him to cut the wild to pieces.
5) The people who do live out in rural areas are so economically disadvanteged as to not give a shit. And I almost dont blame them.
6) Greenhouse gases, fossil fuel. shortages and carbon emissions steal the thunder off any other contemporary environmental issue. Regardless of immediacy or importance.

Texters thumb. Ouch. Comment & tell me what you think. Will make this. a real post later.

Horrible Little Guy

... So, I was Bored

Meh

So this is me reaching for me dreams. Albeit intermittently and liberally sprinkled with episodes of Project Runway, Modern Family and Off the Map.

I am really going to need help on this one. After 5.5 mind numbing years with 5 months total of vacation, this is the last thing I want to be doing.
The roaring 20s it is.

The process of being a doctor is hard and frustrating.

Grown Ups

(c)Bill Watterson

To think I've joined the exalted ranks of the grown up.

I think I'll just remain a kid inside.

They're far more sensible.

A Good Day in Chennai

THEY Say Not to Wear White After Labor Day

The ever vague collective, the THEY, who direct certainty into the "should haves" and "could haves" of sleepless nights, need to go on permanent vacation.

Bred and trained, perhaps, in defense of the common good (which is neither common, nor very good), THEY turn what should just be ordinary fear into wringing doubt.

And the thing about doubt is that it grows, builds and feeds on itself until, one day, it turns feral. It becomes an animal that acts out of a strange volition, separate from your own, but overarching and dangerously imperious. Directed by THEM, estranged from yourself, fear and doubt can drive you into situations you wonder how you could ever have gotten into. Its a sort of quickly enveloping net.

The easy solution, would be to destroy the THEY and cling to that which is its say, nemesis. As Yin is to Yang, THEY answer to you. And the ever besieged soldier of sense of 'you', our integrity.

From 'V from Vendetta'

"Every inch of me shall perish. Every inch, but one. An inch. It is small and it is fragile and it

is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never let THEM take it away from us"

"But I'd only told them the truth. Was that so selfish? Our integrity sells for so little, but it

is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch, we are free."

But of course, the disadvantage of the above is that not only are you constantly at battle, but you are also living, within a very small inch.

As much as believing in yourself, your ideals, your principles gives you a backbone, clinging to yourself, your ideals and your principles weakens your ability to see the world around you, which is as real as yourself.

THEM exists because its a reflection of the things that surround you.

Amartya Sen once said, in Identity and Violence,

"Our freedom to assert our personal identity can sometimes be extraordinarily limited in the eyes of others, no matter how we see ourselves."

This is an important point, because since integrity is dependent on the 'assertion of personal identity', which is more often than not 'limited in the eyes of others,' our sense of self finally does derive, to an extent, from others, and rightly so. Its the reality of the social human.

No matter how much you crave integrity - true integrity, true sainthood, is inhuman.

How much can you battle without losing sight of reality? And really, what would you be fighting for?

So, I suppose, if true peace and happiness exists between the insidious THEM and the stalwart YOU, it isn't quite a pursuit or a fight as much as a discovery.

I've known this all along, and there are 3 friends who've been around since the beginning of med school who've helped me to know this - and who embody this.

Where does peace and truth exist for me?

In the company of people I love.

In the pursuit of knowledge I harness.

In the presence of music I worship.

and

In the consumption of really good food.

:)

.Out.

Blo(g)ck

I haven't been able to blog of late.

There are a lot of thoughts in my head, that are of no use to myself or the cyber-world. They are kind of clogging up the writing process.

If I had something to say, about anything, I would.

Its time to get out of my head.