Sunday, August 24, 2014

My "Social Action" Job Description as Volunteer for Earth, Inc.

I do not do much. I just spread this simple to-do list and try to follow it myself:

Help out and be helped out.
Make people smile and let people make you smile.
Look out for happiness and share your findings.
Look out for hatred and make it stop with you.

Pick up a banana peal and save someone from a painful fall.

Be not only Sapiens Sapiens, but Sapiens Responsabilis. Your fellow specimens will know how to return the courtesy.

***

Plant a cherry tree in your back yard. Feed birds, the neighborhood kids, and help the green lungs of the Planet breathe.

Try to eat responsibly, even if vegetable-and-meat ragout takes time to cook, while burgers are tastier and cheaper.

Of course, most people love a juicy double-cheese. The solution are those with responsible beef, but... what if you ask your vegetarian friends out to grab a bite and have a drink?

And do you really want to cry when stepping on your scales in the morning? Not to mention spending loads on anti-acne washes and anti-aging creams? Our diet is an environmental skin-aging factor, you know...

Try to remember that a $3.99 purchase at a megacorp chain coffee-shop can buy you a couple of your favorite obscure bands' songs on iTunes.

But don't swear off those cappuccinos and scones for good! They're so good they can add up nicely to a perfect date in the park... and many brands do have the little frog drawing, which means you two are being responsible in more than one way.

And you can use the resulting savings to send a letter or some candy to Pirate Bay founders who are now in prison.

After all, Peter and Carl were there for you when you were struggling with job search and felt like watching a movie after weeks of one-meal-per day resume-sending galore...

My guess is they crossed the line when they started advertising on their site.

But although many of us are sarcastic about this particular brand of money-making, let us remember that ads and commercials are not lies, but mere beautiful ways of telling truths. These truths are not necessarily ugly.

So be fair. If you love Jack Sparrow... is Gottfrid Svartholm a worse person? Double standards usually end up in people following no standards at all.

Give 10 cents and a doughnut to a hobo fight poverty.

Buy a $1,000-ticket to a cancer black-tie benefit - and, in addition to helping medicine, show off your new silk gown, thus promoting the cause of beauty in a world that may sometimes seem so ugly.

Give a book on football to a Brazilian favela kid - help sports, fight illiteracy, and maybe create a new Slumdog Millionaire

Share a meal with a long-unemployed friend and help him/her out of their hunger games.

Walk or take a bus to buy locally made groceries at the local supermarket every other evening - then you will have to drive to Walmart not once a week, but twice a month.  And you will help many more causes than your own health.

Follow @saveocean on Twitter and use "green" bags, and maybe "beach" will not be a synonym of "wasteland" in 100 years.

Switch off the light and water as you leave the bathroom. Do your laundry once a week, not every day.

And hopefully, your grandchildren will never hear of bugaboos called  Fukushima and shark with cancer Granpa saw on TV during the irresponsible energy conversion years.

Don't call LGBTQ queer, and someday your actual or potential children will live in a world with more rainbows in the blue sky.

In that world, ancient religious texts will help spread the love message, not make Catholic boys seriously think of going to hell forever in their afterlife.

Take human rights seriously. Maybe you will go join the barricades with placards. Maybe you will do what you do best for the causes you care about.

Maybe, the next case of gay men flogging and imprisonment in the Muslim world will merely make you an ardent student of Islam... just to understand what is wrong.

Trust me, it may be enough to trigger fast change... because in 1 year, every single person remaining on Earth will be a bigger influencer than they are now.

***
Finally,
Give advice on what you know and receive on what you don't to spread knowledge and learning.

Talk to a Monsanto employee about data crystals in Babylon-5... and maybe have a butterfly effect on the

Future... where people bearing your DNA may start building Enterprise ships.

Do not ignore education. Someday, the nerd kids you had bullied in high school, may invent stuff. Maybe you don't care about Einstein-Rosen bridges, but you will certainly want to see a ship fly through them on your smart TV wall... when you reach age 150 and can no longer pursue your skydiving hobby.

Write a text like this during your blogging time... and become a little Ambassador of Peace for your community...

... with cherry pies and new friends as substitutes for accolades and Nobel Prizes.

No comments:

Post a Comment