A Call to Gratitude
Subtly, quietly and somewhat unconsciously, I've spent much of my life believing it a burden. Why a burden? My species plunders and pollutes the planet on which its life depends. The human social club boasts indoor plumbing, industrial food, oil gobbling convenience and household products covered in plastic. We are responsible for global deforestation, disappearing polar icecaps, unsafe drinking water, war, genocide, mass extinctions, caste systems built on inequities and more. And we manage to do it all while contemplating our proverbial navel, glassy-eyed in front of a computer monitor or television screen. How do we reconcile life's endless beauty with our astonishing capacity for ignorance? This question confounds me. By age twelve I'd heard about the golden carrot of enlightenment. And with the certainty of youth I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, enlightened. No biggie right? It seemed like the logical choice and once attained...
