I keep circling back to a line that I’ve heard Stephen Jenkinson say many times:
will we [I] be ancestors worth claiming?
Put it another way, will we leave the planet in better shape than when we came into the world? In my case, that’s a resounding “No”; I’ve taken way much more than I’ve ever given, be that in the stuff I’ve acquired, the cars I’ve driven, the flights I’ve taken or the amount of plastic I’ve indirectly produced.
Perhaps I’m worrying myself unnecessarily. Perhaps the next generation won’t be that interested in nature or the natural world: as long as they can get their material fix, then all well and good. Somehow, not that I’ll be around to report my findings, I think that does them a massive disservice and indeed, if they’re not already saying it, there will arise a mass consciousness which says: they stole our futures! From that place, ancestry will be more than a blot on the landscape.
I suppose, as the old saw goes, all we can do is all we can do, and in my case, as well as walking my ecological (or is that existential?) talk, and as I said in yesterday’s post, I intend to continue speaking up and speaking out in the corporate world, particularly given my opinion fest on the ecocidal tendencies of companies. Sure, it might not move the needle much — I might be better off protesting on the steps of Downing Street — but then again that’s what feels right to me with a lifetime in the trenches of corporate indifference.
Photo by Lucas Sandor on Unsplash