this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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Positive thinking.
It illustrates the problem of that, though.
Positive thinking, or its shadow, outright denial, makes it easier to live comfortably for a few more moments, but that fire is still out there. You're not dealing with the problem, you're hiding from it, and some problems, like a raging fire, kind of need to be dealt with immediately because eventually it's just going to burn down the whole wall.
I took this to be the world on fire, not some controllable fire on his property. Since he can't do anything about the world burning, he decided to just ignore it and focus on his own happiness.
I'd say the answer is in the middle. I see the world on fire and I also have a lot of anxiety because I can't really do much.
But I did what I can personally change. I moved my house off of gas to a dual fuel heat pump with gas only in extreme (<15 degrees F) cold. I moved our water heater off of gas, and we just bought an EV to replace our aging (120k mile) gas car. I also use the bus and train whenever possible (however my wife works far away from transit lines so for now we need one car). I would be doing solar too but we don't have much space on our roof, and estimates said we'd barely cover 20% of our usage. (Far north so only for a few months too)
When I purchase things I try to think about what would be the more moral choice, and I usually go with that.
Beyond all of that, I vote in every election, and that's about everything I can do.
And that's helped my anxiety. I'm about as carbon neutral as I can be, I encourage my friends and family to make carbon neutral choices, but after that I put down my blinds and try to ignore things. I'm not president, I can't change the world, but I at least changed my family.
And I'd say if everyone who felt the same hopelessness started making similar changes it would start to make a difference, showing there's a demand for green alternatives.
Hear hear! I've made similar choices in my life as well. Beyond that, I decided a couple of years ago to just go about life as usual. Covid really taught me how powerless I am on the grand scale of things. So I guess it goes back to the Serenity Prayer: