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CounterPunch
December
14, 2002
The Impotence
of Being Earnest
by RON SULLIVAN
We all need a garden, and we all need fun. The
garden doesn't have to grow food or be in the ground or even
have dirt in it--what the heck, maybe it's a nice colony of the
North American bathroom mushroom, Peziza domiciliara, in the
shower caulk. The fun doesn't have to be TV-sanctioned stupid
elbow-pumping, either. We need both like vitamins, and like vitamins
their lack in the long term does subtle, sneaky, unexpected damage.
Your eyes will get sandy and dim, your bones will wilt like ferns
in Phoenix, your teeth will wobble and your senses fade--or maybe
you'll just be duller than you have to be and never notice the
difference. One way or another, it'll getcha.
I wouldn't've thought anyone could garden
for long without getting their RDA of laughs--it's sure full
of occasions to laugh at oneself--but some years ago I read a
pair of books by Helen and Scott Nearing. These two are canonized
saints of organic gardening, and one hates to dump on either
the dead or the allies, but let me quote a bit about the reasons
for their moving from Vermont to Maine:
"In almost every newcomer's house
in the valley, dancing and liquored parties were the social enjoyment
of the young people. To what purpose? We felt that life was earnest,
that it was an opportunity to learn, to serve, to build truth,
beauty, justice into the world. If this were not so, dances,
gossip-bees, and beer parties might be in order, because then
life would be futile and meaningless and any form of escape would
be preferable to boredom. ... In any case we were not happy in
surroundings that were becoming a center for trivial activities
and purposeless living."
Now this isn't about fleeing a noisy
student co-op, a bachelors'-pad condo, or a block of crack houses.
The Nearings lived on a farm in Vermont, not even jolly Southern
California--and they left in 1951, before anyone had heard of
discos or even rock 'n' roll. No one was throwing bricks through
their windows; it's unlikely even the noise carried to the Nearings'
place. They cite as damning evidence of the neighbors' intolerable
frivolity their persistence in extending merely social invitations.
These people moved out of Vermont because
their neighbors were having too much fun! That, I submit, is
a species of jaundice.
(To be fair, the Nearings also cite pesky
tourists who interrupt their work. Why they didn't hang a "No
Unannounced Visitors, Please" sign on the gate and get on
with their chores is a mystery. Apparently they didn't think
of this until 1978.)
All that time in the garden and no dancing?
Not even foot-tapping and appreciative hoots from the sidelines?
These folks need a dose of Emma Goldman.
There's a sizable body of opinion that
holds the life without dancing to be the more futile and meaningless,
and I tend to agree if dancing is broadly defined. All I would
exclude from it is constructive or paid activity. What I see
here (and here and there, too) is people who don't know the difference
between seriousness and solemnity.
And I certainly wouldn't invite a gloomy
poop like that to my party.
Does this have any long-term effects
on the brain? There's evidence in the Nearings' writings that
it does: the same people who speak so sensitively of caring for
the soil, of being self-sufficient and not depending on fossil
fuels, of allowing forests to mature, mention approvingly a Soviet
scheme in which "Eurasian rivers, among the largest on the
planet, which have flowed north for millennia are being turned
around, made to run south into the Central Asian deserts."
What is this, ecological Stalinism? How is this different from
the recent cockamamie plans to drain Canada's water into the
southwestern US? Is the disastrousness of this stuff apparent
only in hindsight?
I doubt it. The first thing to go in
a case of humor deficiency is the sense of proportion. Maybe
there is such a thing as tending one's own garden too long. Maybe
those who undertake to live a worthwhile life should hire someone
to sneak up on them once a week and tickle them.
But there, see, I'm doing it myself:
trying to make frivolousness serve a higher purpose. Like any
other endangered species, silliness is its own excuse for being.
Like some endangered species, it just happens to be good for
what ails you.
Like many of my fellow activists, I'm
a veteran of a Catholic upbringing. I know how Catholic scrupulousness
transfers easily to environmental scruples--I learned very young
the fine art of examining my conscience--and how seductive the
temptation is to value sacrifice for its own sake. But pain has
no more inherent value than paper money; what matters is what
we trade it for.
We can paralyze ourselves trying to live
without impact, just squeezing every breath for Values and Significance.
Looking at the well-intentioned disasters in all our histories
can paralyze us, too: Is this new seed going to grow into some
equivalent of pampas grass? Is that biocontrol the new starling?
Is the latest drain cleaner harmless only until it reaches the
waterways? It's certainly interesting, trying to be conscientious
without being blame-ridden.
It's also interesting trying to be effective
without buying into commercial pietism. The idea that we can
stop pollution by picking up litter is as aesthetically offensive
as the litter itself. Cigarette smoking, whatever its dangers,
is not a leading cause of acid rain. Fur coats take fewer lives
and cause less pain than plowed grainfields.
People seize on this stuff because it
seems more reachable than the policymakers at Maxximum Exxtractive
Industries Int'l, who probably don't see themselves as nature-rapers.
(The nature of a big bureaucracy, public or private, is such
that they may not see themselves as policymakers, either.) The
anger's legitimate; just the aim is off.
So why do some of us analyze the effects
of our actions and try to husband our resources and make big
changes, too?
Most of us fell in love. This is where
the garden comes in. (You were wondering, weren't you?) I'll
define it as broadly as I define dancing: the garden is the place
we make in our lives and holdings for other species.
It's where we see how other beings live,
how they affect us and we them, what they need and what we need,
how it all connects. For most of us, that visceral connection
is the first step into the wide world that we learn to treasure.
It obviates questions like "What does an oil spill have
to do with poor people?" when we know we're all together
in being robbed of our heritage before we get a chance to figure
out what it is.
It's not a luxury. We all breathe. We
all eat and drink. We all have minds and senses that need to
be fed. We all need to make that connection somewhere or I swear
we'll be less than we have the right to be.
We don't have to be rich or middle-class
before we have the right to want it, either.
Wanting it, lusting for it, is going
to motivate a lot more people a lot more strongly than either
guilt or piety. If I evangelize about gardens, it's because I've
seen in myself and others the opening up to the unmediated, unprocessed
world that happens there, the temptation to look around and take
the next step and occupy our rightful place on Earth. I have
no problem with appealing to our baser nature because I think
our baser nature is the most hopeful thing we've got.
Ron Sullivan
is the Garden Editor for Faultline,
California's Environmental Magazine.
She can be reached at: rons@dnai.com
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