On the way home across the smoggy, yellow desert, I reflected a lot on the benefits of inaction. Smog, for instance, is as much a product of action as it is of inaction. Although technology can and does bring relief to the environment, it is the developed nations, not the undeveloped nations, that produce the most greenhouse gasses per capita. It is true our energy is much cleaner, but we use so much more of it because of our excessive need to be productive and entertained. We defy nature so that we can work and play throughout the night. While much of the world is sleeping, we are up late, producing carbon monoxide--staying late at the office, eating out, seeing a movie, working graveyard, or sitting alone in Denny's writing a book. You name it, the lights are on, and we are up consuming energy. Action.
I also reflected back on my life and realized I had done plenty. No, I hadn't gained any fame. No, I hadn't accumulated any wealth. No, I hadn't accomplished my dreams, but I had done plenty. What I realized I hadn't done is enjoy the life I was living at the moment. I was always acting on tomorrow. I was always escaping the now by fantasizing about the future. For much of my life, I was bored, restless. Even now that I was seldom bored and generally very satisfied, I was still always dreaming of different tomorrows: getting the house clean this winter; finally finishing the garden and patio area this summer; going back to school and finishing up my MFA program; or most recently, giving it all up, to go on the road and give ice cream away to the world. These were all things that removed me from my present moment. Looking back, I realized that's really all I got wrong in my life. I was never fully present in the moment.
In high school I lived with my brother, an artist. I might come home from school and find him in the field across the railroad tracks from our apartment complex flinging paint on raw canvas with the intensity of a conductor leading a symphony. One year, he built city out of foam-core and charcoal in our hallway. I had to step over foam-core cars to get to the bedroom. It was like living inside a David Hockney instillation or the prop room of a theater company. My friends and I hung out at the museum, the zoo, the botanical gardens. We took photographs, went for hikes, long drives, and went camping. My brother and I stayed up late, listening to music, talking about arts and ideas.
So much of what I had done was good; I was just too stupid to realize it was good at the moment. There was always some girl I needed in my life to make me happy, so I was miserable. And the small part of my life where I really went astray only occurred because I was too stupid to accept who I was and where I was at that moment, and in the misery of the moment, sought escape through alcohol.
Had I learned to be still, I realized, life would have been grand no matter what I did or didn't accomplish. It wasn't movement that mattered, but stillness.
I looked across the valley. The mountains at the south end had vanished behind the sickly, brown smog. There was that strange yellow smudgy glow of winter inversion. I felt dissatisfied. I wanted to do something. Should I write my congressman? Donate to Greenpeace? No, that would just use more energy. I would have to get on my computer, keep on the lights, write multiple drafts to get it just right. Someone on the other end would have to read it. They would put me on their mailing lists and send me emails. People would be working all hours to bring me into their correspondence, sending me weekly reminders to vote or donate. I would spend hours deleting those emails from my account. I had the urge to just slam on the breaks, turn off the car, get out and stand in the middle of the road and listen to a single moment of silence broken only by the cry of a passing hawk.
I thought of the moon, and emptiness; of clear, white light.
For a moment, I thought I found Nirvana.
Then I turned on the radio.
