Be Good to Your Mother

You are creating the future whether you participate deliberately, or not.
Should we fear the apathy of our youth coming up in current gray-water morality? Tens of millions of America’s youthful passengers wholly unaware that their world is moving forward by bus, driven by senile grandparents. Pajama clad children in faux-fur slippers don’t  pay the fare as they board the bus — they simply tapped their parents chip card, and yawned... Put out, for having to get off the couch... Meanwhile --
Mother Earth, spins alone like a ball on the fingertip of an elderly athlete.
Our ‘Has-Been’ Atlas in baggy khakis (it turns out) dribbling more in his pants than on the court remains devoted to a tribal fan-club, working only to ‘Maintain the shine on his loafers and hanger's-on. Isn't it always the old guy reminiscing past conquest, who is wholly un-relatable to our youth.  Please do not look up!, because this guy’s blue ball is about to drop. (Your earth could of course be a disc, if you'd prefer a flat earth image).
This drivel will read as a callous attack upon America's youth, which is precisely what it is... It comes upon the heels of several interviews wherein 9 out of 10 'kids' (an affectionate term) plainly admitted to choosing not to vote in 2020. The same youth stated simply that they didn't think much of The "Environment", nor of "Mother Earth" as a concept. These -- Your kids will inherit the earth, and most appear  ill-equipped,  ill-informed, or both.  Thank you Social Media.
My friend Nate used to say, "Come the revolution,  they will be the first ones up against the wall"... I suppose, that too will not be televised. While It's unlikely that they will improve their social skills in the meantime, they may need to harden the fuck up.  In fact, we may all be a bit too squishy to begin abruptly at "roughing it".
Two young people told me that Global Warming was part of the normal ebb and flow of things. And all of them said that they didn't like "either candidate". As though they were picking from a menu at a fancy restaurant knowing their Parents will stop at Chipotle on their way home.

"BY NOW, it is just a question of which heart-rending image you choose. There is the hawksbill turtle struggling to free itself from a plastic bag. The sea of polystyrene trash floating over a Caribbean nature reserve. Or the sperm whale washed ashore in Spain, its stomach filled with plastic waste." Aisling Irwin The New Scientist 2018
Earth?, What earth?.. Nobody looks out the window anymore, as we motor along, Screens aglow upon doughy faces. Each 'Kid' posing upon a vinyl seat, ignoring each-other with headphones on. A.I. illuminates everything required to sustain them, providing: fashion, music, junk-food, pills and liquor. Hip-hop hums like bees through tiny diaphragms in each and every eardrum.  Vibrations echo through their hive, scented with adolescent feet, and axe effect. Pseudo geniuses geofenced by pre-ordained music, force-fed the same stream into  each lolling head in a wholly uncritical teen spirit musical agenda.
Yea, sure ‘the Kids are alright’, but they cannot know where we are heading next because nobody actually knows the name of the old guy who’s driving this bus. This is unsurprising because they didn’t vote.  Emotionally fragile, our celibate children punctuate celebrities, using emoticons on snack smeared screens, as if picking teammates for kickball. As the circus bus chugs forward in a blue diesel smog, dialog suppressed to The thumb direction of a dictator, our babies are stroking themselves to posts of pop pornography. Beautifully adorned baby-zombies sporting well-preserved Jordan’s, and snarky t-shirts, charging into their future. Fully formed toddlers learn to Swim in baggy sweatsuits, munching Gluten-Free single serving snacks. The Meek shall inherit the earth, (why not?)  -- And this thought should shake you until you shit yourself. What's left of the virgin earth could fit upon the teleprompter of Greta TinTin Thunberg. One of few with moxie, and initiative.
​
They say one should never wake a sleep-walker — whispering "Just let them wander back to the sofa". A trillion stoner sofas soiling the oceans, plugging its rivers, and ablaze in our forests.  All positioned to view the altar of our new online religion in landscape mode.
Happy Earth Day! everyone.

---

We had a dream, we'd go travelin' together, We'd spread a little lovin' then we'd keep movin' on.

I’m not sure it’s fair to say… but tik-tok, Fakebook and all the messiahs of our new religions soil the slope of sewerage lubricating our chapped asses as we listless cowards slide down slope-style to an epic fail. We cannot look away from the gore. The thing is that none of the peak wealth remain earnestly dedicated to change, let alone improvement.  Today I got an email from Amazon touting what to buy for Earth day.
True Story.
Six of the ten items had Mercury LED Displays, Lithium Batteries, and were made from infinitely un-recyclable Plastic. If Bezos loved his Mother too, he'd stop shipping shit in a trillion new cardboard boxes.  The fact its that the Millennial effect of so many consumer conveniences, and so many "Special" people, means that we have become awful custodians of our Mother.  
"Amazon shipped more than 5 billion items worldwide last year through Prime alone. LimeLoop used data from USPS, FedEx, and UPS to estimate that around 165 billion packages are shipped in the U.S. each year, and then roughly calculated that the cardboard used would equate to more than 1 billion trees" -Adele Peters Fast Company 
We’ve built a border-wall between what America aspired to be when your president was your age,  and what it has devolved into.
I used to be a bit scared of Hippies, and now I’m  scared of so much that I can feel your disenfranchisement.  But, If the kids have yet to be disappointed, or disproved, then they cannot really give up yet, right? I feel as though I may as well have another drink. Those uninspired "leaders" who aspire to ascension, all seem to be false profits, and those concerned seem to off themselves for caring too much.  So many false prophets from Trump and Kalanick & Musk to Putin. All of them would eat your darling children, if the cupboard were bare, perhaps just before devouring each other.
Speaking of children... I can bitch about stuff, or lead by example, but we are all passing the torch to our Youth. Today, this seems a bit frightening, if only because most don't seem to notice much.
So what of the earth which we share as we pound it with Bombs, Plastic straws, Batteries and Gap clothing? Can we keep her?

If it were up to the disenfranchised me -- Perhaps we'd simply leave the room, hit the lights and lock the door behind. This pragmatic,  if unrealistic head-in-the-sand approach is frustration made tangible.  Instead, we get to  sit with the children beside the campfire, toss upon it the books they'll never read, and watch it slowly burn.

Earth Day -- We live on the same planet, this same glorious bluish planet, which we have shit upon for millennia. Yet we expect her to devour our trash hour by hour? Sometimes it seems comforting to just ignore the leftovers, as an embarrassment of our excess... So we ask the server to "PLEASE take that away" embarrassed by a pile of un-eaten greasy remains upon your plate. Yes, "take it" so it wont stare back at you in judgment 
​Or, perhaps it's helpful to feel nothing, just get up and leave.

Earth Day?  packaged just for you in half a trillion pretty plastic clam-shell tubs, like your lettuce mix.  Together we've made about 8,300 million tons of plastic waste, and we, together continue to produce 8 Million Tons each year.  Your clear polymer biome, charged with CO2, is built to keep the mesclun mix fresh -- All appalling, for sure but that doesn't account for plastic car bumpers, sweat-pants, and iPhones.  Gather your stuff, your thoughts, your consideration and any wisdom you've retained since 2019 -- Now try your level best to tote your groceries home without a bag for one fucking day.  Do your part, take up the torch, (so to speak) -- But don't light it just yet. If you can't do that -- Then the least you can do is stay home another day, car parked, no Amazon deliveries, no takeout food... Just raid your own cupboard for scraps. 

After-all, when the grid goes down, we'll all learn how to camp.