River Dance

It’s really just dirt, and it provides no obvious indicators that it is ever going to amount to much more than what its modest name would foreshadow. It sits right next to a river, that appears to wander aimlessly, a river which offers no hint of purpose, and at first glance, a river that would not tend to indicate that it might be capable of creating any sort skirmish as a result of its mere existence.

This river and the dirt around it, and for that matter, the carbon based life-forms that scratch out a life within and around it, are at the very least deceptive. This is especially true for any individual who would approach this place with so many fully formed impressions, but without having the benefit of actual first hand knowledge. You know, anyone who approached this place just as I had chosen to do.

I have walked around for most of my natural life, and felt fairly certain that I had managed to avoid maintaining any prejudices. Standing atop this dirt, I finally realized just how easy it is to deceive one's self, even with the best of all possible intentions. Through sheer (and I truly mean), dumb luck, I wound up in a far better place than had I managed to convince myself that I was heading towards. That my friends is no small miracle, and one that will most likely appear on my final record with an asterisk.

Despite the odds against it, this river managed to create one major controversy. It wound up exacting a considerable toll upon on the lives of people that were oblivious to its existence, as well as those people who chose to ignore or devalue it’s true significance. For me personally, that is a demonstration of extreme power and influence.

Everyone now bows to the river, grudgingly or not, and we are now forced to give the river back much of what we have taken from it over the centuries. Just don’t make the mistake of assuming that we are going through these exertions for the sake of the river; we are doing this primarily for people who have never actually seen this river.

My father chose to expend considerable energy working to protect the environment, and fighting for people who were yet to be born. There was rarely a day that would go by during the weeks and months after my father had passed where someone would not approach me, and at some point during the conversation state,

“ I hope you wind up being at least half the man that your father was.”

With the benefit of the perspective that has now simply fallen into my lap, I beg to differ with these well-wishers who would always seem to come up on the short side of encouragement, and to them I say,

No thank you. I want to be more like this river.

You could pick up the rock, and look at it from a differing angle and say that this scenario was an example of how masterfully self-centered human beings have become, and just how far south our respect for the environment has traveled. While it is entirely true that we appear to task ourselves with protecting our environment only when our own behavior, operating in symbiosis with our environment, creates a threat to our own existence or our “perceived” quality of life, I must respond to those who would correctly make this statement by saying,

I still want to be more like this river.

These days, about the only way you can motivate people adequately enough to consider anything other than their own well being is to instill enough fear in them to make them wary of the results of their interactions with you or their environment. The danger must be imminent or already in progress; you cannot provide most humans an advance warning that they will heed. Looking back over the last two years of writing this blog, it is painfully obvious that I have much to learn from this river, and the conclusion that it is time to move on is now inescapable.

The question of why anyone would wish to save a species that has become so profoundly self-absorbed will probably torment me the rest of my days, but I am slowly learning to live without answers to every possible question.

God how I wish I had been more like this river.