One of my high school teachers once asked, “Without speech, would there still be thought?” At the time this stoner-esque consideration was profound enough to leave me not only speechless, but thoughtless as well. I tried to imagine a thought without words and could only vaguely conceive of emotional inspirations that well up deep within us. Music has a piece of this power, to convey thought and emotion without words, but in a way it borrows so much from speech and sound.
People seem to do a lot of talking, and a lot of thinking. Unfortunately, they don’t always go hand in hand and at times we seem to say things without thinking about them, and conversely to think of things without talking about them. Most of the time, this is all fine and well, after all if you’re not hurting someone or something with your pointless drivel then who cares, but words and thoughts have a way of turning into actions, and together these can have a serious impact.
In today’s world, there exists a lot of inequality, a lot of struggle and a mounting state of crisis. For the most part, we in America are protected from these issues with the privilege of wealth and leisure that come with a developed country. But as we all know, it’s easy to surround yourself with drama, and we can pretty much create strife and struggle in our otherwise easy and carefree lives. Humans are a very thoughtful species; our propensity for reason and logic enables us to turn over an idea, a concept in our minds before acting on it. At one time this might have been a useful skill in hunting or gathering, when a couple of individuals might get together and figure out how to flank an animal, trap it and kill it. But in today’s leisurely and developed world, this rational and logical way of thinking has lead us astray, and in order to maintain the status quo, we reasonably legitimize reprehensible actions like strip mining, hydraulic-fracturing, and ocean acidification.
But as these problems continue to mount, and our drive to find solutions increases, let us not forget the power of action, or non-action. Ours is an intellectual society, and while we think hard to create solutions to these great issues of our time, quite often we’re only creating more problems along the way, this due in part to our social and political taboos. There are simply things, places, and people that we don’t consider. Get rid of your car? Live in a home without electricity? Don’t eat peppers in December? Unheard of. But even more simple actions than these can serve to help deliver us to a more healthy future.
Our capitalist economy has managed to intertwine environmental sympathies with the concept of losing basic liberties, and so for an ecologically minded individual to insinuate that to sacrifice some of our more ostentatious ways of life might be in order is considered blasphemous, and moving backwards. In a society governed by speed, this is the ultimate condemnation, for anyone who is not going forward, not becoming quicker and more efficient is being left behind. If automobiles and personal transportation account for the majority of air pollution in cities, our society claims that the answer is to build a better car, to make it more efficient, when in reality perhaps the solution might be as simple as not having personal automobiles.
The next time you recognize this behavior, try and sympathize with this scared and unsound perspective, ours is a world in flux, and there are many individuals and conceptions that will have a hard time adapting. Remember that our society’s concept of speed and efficiency don’t display as swift and resourceful, but as reckless and inexpensive. Remember that no single thought has gotten us into the predicaments we now face, but an accumulation of actions brought on by our overall state of mind that reflects our use of force and entitlement. To stop and reverse these violent and dangerous trends, we need to do, to actually stop and reverse. Yes, we do need to think reasonably, but we also need to realize that our preconceptions of entitlement and sacrifice must change, along with our notions of ownership and health.
My point is only this: that just as we may not be able to have thought without words, so might we not be able to have actions without thoughts, and perhaps our situation is one borne from an accumulation of centuries of thoughtless actions. So as we move forward and strive to adapt ourselves to a more sustainable and less impactful society, perhaps we can do so in the same way we created these problems, with an aggregate of small actions. Drive less, buy less, be less.
We have built a civilization whose sole function is consumption, so to replace it with one of production; we must take small steps, small actions that will make this a reality. Plant a garden, make the things you need, do without, in this way we might start to deconstruct the machine. Start today. Ride your bike.