A friend has been ordained as a Zen priest after decades of sitting with Buddhism as a factor in his environmental activism. In his lineage, one chooses what color robes to wear and he chose deep green.
A career biologist now retired, he had seen the cumulative devastation of his world and objected, with the usual results. The pace of his activism flagged for awhile, but seems to have picked up since the ceremony, yet he seems much more relaxed and focused. I recognize what's going on there; it parallels a lot of what has been on my mind as well.
For decades my approach to activism was to make research or relevant news available and leave others to draw their own conclusions; I did this out of habit due to having a librarian background, and out of a compulsion to report the things media balk at reporting, or hide, or misrepresent, for the usual reasons. The method was simple: gather a list of sources I found somewhat reliable, whose concerns aligned with my own, and post links to their articles; I shied away from expressing an actual opinion very often. The venues were: Google Reader -> Facebook, then later Twitter Lists -> Twitter (I seldom looked at the dismaying home stream) and then at last Feedly -> Mastodon; some two thousand people in each place have subscribed to my curation.
The topics of interest ranged a bit beyond what has appeared in this blog. They were, roughly: climate, simplicity, public health, disaster prevention (especially wildfire), amelioration and recovery, resource and ecosystem conservation, healthy animals, plants and soil, permaculture, food and seed sovereignty, indigenous and subsistence concerns, human rights, and resistance to racism, human and White supremacy, genocide and extinction.
The short version is that I've generally taken the side of Leavers over Takers (see Ishmael by Daniel Quinn).
What effect all this has had, I have no idea. I'm not immune to a sense of having done my part, though I admire (from a safe distance) those my own age who still go to demonstrations. BTDT.
If asked, I tell them the likeliest way to "make a difference" would be to revive the labor movement, with one change in tactic: when one union sits down, they all sit down. And one change in aim: to make all businesses and jurisdictions cooperatives -- stakeholder owned and managed, by which I mean, the workers and the customers (private entities) and the served (public entities). But how likely is that to happen?
My practice in the face of hardly any of these concerns resolving
rationally has been, first, Buddhism, then Quakerism, then both. To sit
quietly with having "failed to make a difference," time and time again.
The last sparrow is the same as a billion sparrows. Enjoy its beauty
even as you realize its beauty is only tangentially yours to enjoy. Sit
through enjoyment to thusness. Sit with the clouds brushing past the
peaks. Sit with the sky empty of clouds. Act as stillness; be still
through action.
All this has helped "me," so I'll stick with it as able. It has
taken a long time to clarify that it was enough (for my sanity) to
undertake, and to continue taking, hopefully discernible right action without expectation.
I'm thrilled every time I see my friend's green robe. Metta to all the things.
