The legend goes that the way to boil a frog is not to stick him in boiling water (he’ll jump right out), but to stick him in pleasantly warm water (he’ll like it and stay) and slowly increase the temperature. He cooks without even knowing it.
This actually inaccurate legend) is also how you get people used to great changes…they occur slowly, not in obvious leaps and bounds. Incremental change is barely detected by our distracted consciousnesses. Our ‘simmer temperature’ is slowly being turned up, and we don’t even realize it, or we have our noses rubbed in those changes and wonder how it could come to such a thing. Maybe we’re even a bit hurt and indignant, that someone who was supposed to be paying attention to these changes didn’t warn us, so we could take action in time. But now it’s too late, so fuck it…we’ve gotta get to work tomorrow or mow the l;awn now, or something. So we just grumble about it, accepting what we see as a fait accompli, a done deal.
We all have experienced the major changes I’m talking about, even if we’ve only been on the planet for a relatively short while. What we once called the Land of the Free is now beset by some very non-free manifestations, and ‘United We Stand’ has turned into ‘US vs. Them’. It all happened so fast, it seems…or so insidiously. One minute you’re walking your dog, waving at neighbors, and the next minute you’re shaking your fist in rage at ‘some Toyota’ that cut you off. Crazy, right?
Well, sometimes this change occurs so insidiously that we don’t even grumble, that we don’t even recognize it when it stares us in the face. We simmer happily, perhaps commenting to each other how dang nice the water in this pot is.
We ride through the unseasonably warm weather, and post on Facebook how…nice it is. We enjoy the fact that we can go out in a Colorado mid-December and not have to take a jacket, much less a winter coat. We send each other pictures of the gloriously colored clouds at sunset, or perhaps at a (suspiciously) rainbow-colored cloud in mid-afternoon. Wow, that’s cool.
It doesn’t occur to us that much of what we see is refraction of light off the horrible pollutants that float through our sky, in the very Breath of Life we breathe each day. It never crosses our radar that in the Good Old Days of Yore (pre-industrial/pre-pollution America/Earth) these type of cloud formations did not even occur. The fact that those chem trails we saw painted all over the sky all day have coalesced into a cirrus-looking layer of dangerous chemicals does not mar our enjoyment of the sunset panorama we dig so much.
The fact that the snowfields we previously had to cross to get to Pawnee Pass don’t exist anymore (and haven’t for some time) is not allowed to ruin our eerily easy trek to the Continental Divide…in winter. No snowshoes, crampons, or skis required; well, great!
Whatever side of the Global Warming Lie you are on, you loosen your coat and turn your face to the sun. You are glad you aren’t freezing like you used to as a kid, and share this gladness with your friends and loved ones. We even post a lot of pictures and comments on what a great time we had, doing things we normally couldn’t do in winter.
I get the image of a couple walking through Hell, holding hands. ‘Why, isn’t this nice, George? It’s not much hotter than California. And look! There’s even a T-shirt shop and a boutique. Let’s go to that cute little cafe when our walk is over…’
I suppose you might as well enjoy any situation you find yourself in as much as you can, or at least as much as is appropriate. After all, we as a society have apparently decided that happiness and enjoyment are our primary goals. So if you’re in Hell, it just makes sense to try and enjoy it, right? Right?
After all, the sun’s been shining a lot in December, and we have less and less cold days. It’s been like that for a while now, so…ain’t that…normal? We fidget, sensing the illogic behind our new subconscious ‘reasoning’. We justify. Well, it’s the New Normal, and we just have to deal with it, right?
Right. But I think dealing with it doesn’t necessarily mean just slathering on the sunscreen or coconut oil and sitting back to enjoy the day. It might mean actually doing something, changing something. Or not.
I mean, this is how it is now, and I am all about being fully present in the moment and not arguing too much with the IS. But I also know bullshit when I smell it.
I don’t care if this warming (or at least rapidly and wildly changing weather patterns, unlike anything in recorded history) is caused by humanity’s pollution, nor do I care. Maybe it is a natural trend (perhaps sped up by our uh, …input to the ecosystem) and no one is to blame (especially Big Oil). I don’t care.
Whatever the reason, the reality is undeniable. California burns due to drought, while somewhere else in the world floods and monsoons deluge the place. I ride in warm December sunshine, while in Florida and Texas it snows. Almost daily, we set new records for high temperatures. The previous records were not from 1897 or something, but from the previous year. Each year successively sets new records, yet we whistle past the graveyard, actually digging the change.
We drown in our own filth, ingest it, and the cancer rates rise. That’s okay, we sweep it under the rug, or ignore the elephant in the living room, while unprecedented numbers of people die from (quite possibly) food and pollution-based cancers. We just make some more Cancer Treatment Centers, employ some more people to put a bright face on it ($10 per hour, background check, drug screen, and social media investigation required). We make a billion dollar industry out of it and call it good.
Yeah, we just adapt and roll with the changes, as R.E.O. Speedwagon told us to when we were kids. We let it be, as the Beatles advised. We keep truckin’, like the Dead said. It’s all good.
I suppose it is a natural response, and maybe a pretty good defense mechanism. After all, it might drive us crazy (or to demonstrate in large numbers and get arrested, losing our ten buck an hour jobs and causing us to miss those all important car/truck payments, those pesky mortgage or rent payments) if we thought about it too much. We’d have to miss Fox Thursday Night, and hell, that would suck. We’d best just keep quiet about all that (did you see the new laws criminalizing protesters? we quip at the office or on Facebook…we make shocked or angry emoticons to tell the world this just is not OK).
I can get it, we all read 1984, and know how to act, right? I can dig the silent grumbling, the ostensible obsequiousness, the passive-aggressive behavior. It’s a little harder to wrap my mind about us getting into these new developments, actually embracing them. Not only do we make the best of them, we seem to almost welcome them. See, it is the apocalypse, we crow gleefully. I told you. Look, you evil Republican, we are going to hell in a hand-basket, and this latest study (or meme) proves it! So there! Take that!
Global warming? Beach day!
Ocean fish polluted? Eat farmed fish!
Living in Hell? Buy good real estate!
It’s a bit comical, and more than a bit scary, this trend I observe. Or am I just the Evil Media spreading fake news, and the rest of the world are sober, well-reasoned beings, working diligently to do their parts to make this world a better place to live? I dunno, I’m just some guy, some biker. How could I possibly know anything?
Besides, I’m just sayin’, just passin’ the time until my new pipes get here and I can ride gleefully through the unseasonably warm Colorado December, thanking ‘God’ and my lucky stars for the Great Lie of Global Warming.
It’s time to ride!
Tales of a Lone Wolf 