So there is this thing, you may have heard of it, it's called climate change. But WAIT! Don't leave! Keep this screen or tab open! Don't exit this blog post, although I know you want to and I will tell you exactly why you want to. Last year, I sat in on my first year journalism lecture on climate change and it made me miserable the entire time. Like shattered all of my hope for humanity type of miserable. Climate change is the biggest battle that we are ever going to face but literally no one cares. Don't be offended, maybe you care or think you care, but the facts show that no one really does. There are exceptions, yes, but in general we are all the unfortunate victims in some shape or form to this blissful ignorance against climate change. And the stats on this very fact display our ignorance perfectly; because climate change is a literal ratings killer.
Financially, as a journalist, you would be committing career suicide by publishing content on climate change in a constant fashion. Because of this one tiny true fact: ignorance is bliss. No one would read your writing, your very income. We are much more content in living our happily ever afters if we don't know about the forest that has just burnt down, or the ice berg that has just melted - life is a lot more pleasant in that sense. Winding down after work and putting your feet up is a lot easier when you don't know that we are in a global crisis and we are the ones to blame for that very crisis. And I get it, I mean I do it, I AM a contributor to this ignorance! Our idiosyncratic lives already are fully compromised by work, studies, relationships, needs to feed oneself and excrete that consumed matter. To even seriously sit down and contemplate one's carbon footprint or society's major fuck you to our earth almost seems like herding cats - impossible and not going to happen.
To know or not to know; that is the question. Ignorance is bliss, as Thomas Gray originally disclaimed in his poem titled 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College'. Gray nostalgically reflects on the teenage years that have past him; those carefree and careless days that are sorely reminisced. Ignorance has been a persistent questioned conundrum in the worlds of philosophy and psychology. Is ignorance really bliss? Take adulthood for instance: adulthood and childhood have their obvious distinct differences. Adults look at kids and think that being a kid was so blissful because they didn't have to deal with the burdens of adulthood. Children genuinely can just fuck around, not pay taxes, dribble a little and get away with it! With that though comes the double edged sword of childhood also being remembered through an entirely different lens. Your kid brain only had the capacity to be ignorant. Undeveloped brains lead your developed brain to remembering childhood as a walk in the park, completely untouched by the atrocities of human pain and existence. The reality of that though is that when you were a child, you were actually too dumb to comprehend what was truly happening. Hence childhood trauma being a thing, your subconscious secretly conceals the matter of fact of a past experience that has led your adult self to adopting distressing behaviours. Alternatively, adulthood comes with satisfactions of knowing and being able to do some things. Satisfaction can be encountered in realms exclusive to adulthood like finding love, travelling, more personal liberties, consensual sex and developing a new skill.
Back on track with the climate change chaos, the other day I was an astounded media and coms student when watching TV ONE News with the parents and heard Wendy Petrie announce that David Attenborough had declared a global climate change crisis. So there I was, wide eyed and bushy tailed ready for a heavy "get your shit together" type of news story. Well, to say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. The story was simply a 5 second clip of David saying that we need to act now and that we are amongst a crisis. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. Just that. What did I just learn or consume? Basically a confirmation that Sir Attenborough is still alive and sane enough to admit the truth. But as a voyeur, I took away nothing from that news story. No resources were mentioned or no suggestions of how to act in accordance to aid the earth's revamp. Nothing. One News attracts almost a million New Zealander viewers every evening, a quarter(ish) of our nation's population and there with David's help was an opportunity to enlighten and inform the public. Yet, our mainstream media failed again in addressing the harsh reality, leaving NZers still smiling and hopeful amidst their ignorance. Grrr, is all I can say. But then again, when there is no demand for specific information in the market, the supply seems all that less attractive. I thought this lil comic of dinos conversing visualises what I am trying to put down for ya:
(credit to Mike Peters)
Currently I am reading this book "Everything Is F**ked: A Book About Hope" by Mark Manson. It honestly probably explains this blog post existing in the first place. A lot of angst and rants about society make up both Manson's book and this blog post. But the book is really fantastic and has so far (I'm like 50 pages off finishing it and probably will have finished it once this is published lol) been so content packed and mind expanding. Basically it is based on the concept of hope sucking. It draws on Nietzsche's (a German philosopher who was drastically physically crippled and lived in the Swiss alps, a real go getter) thinking on the concept. Nietzsche thought that hope is not the way to go as it alludes to not accepting things as they are. Nietzsche believed that the formula for greatness in a human being is something called amor fati which translates to the "love of one's fate." Manson explains this is as "the unconditional acceptance of all life and experience: the highs and lows, the meaning and the meaninglessness. It meant loving one's pain, embracing one's suffering. It meant closing the separation between one's desires and reality not by striving for more desires, but by simply desiring reality." Personally, I think that is a rather breathtaking and beautiful concept. I mean the Beatles sung it in "Let It Be" and Buddha told us to "concentrate on the present moment."
These teachings - whether you call a 70s inspirational Beatles' ballad a teaching or not is up to you - are unfortunately not acknowledged when it comes to the mainstream media's relationship with climate change. The thing is, our changing climate is our now. Our now is bushfires, it is melting icebergs and scorching temperatures. Our now encompasses the entire 24 hour news cycle. But when we have media - the main means of mass communication - negating its existence due to an unreceptive audience, it really makes you question how on earth (this VERY earth) we are going to combat the biggest fight that will ever happen in our time on earth. It is an overwhelming fight and almost makes one feel extremely hopeless in the pursuit of a more sustainable earth. Think about how you consume your media; are you blissfully ignoring this fight or are you going to actively withstand from this societal norm? Let me know what you think and let's chat about it. Peace and love readers.
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LINKS:
~ Link for previous blog post: https://www.madein2000.com/post/41-serotonin
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This blog will encompass the life of a 20-year-old kiwi chica. Composed of stories, advice, life lessons, worldly observations and whatever else Ella's life brings to surface. For all of this and more, read my new found blog 'Born In 2000': established on the 28th of October, 2019. Where Ella Gibson explores her life that exceeds all limitations. Publications should be expected once a week. Also, be sure to take this present moment now and rock it!