Why I Want to Save the World?

It’s the little questions that get to you. Who are you? Where do you come from? Where are you headed?

Recently another question thrown at me: Why do you do what you do? A co-blogger asked me this as he’s reading my blog.

What am I doing trying to save the planet from extinction when there are other ways to make a living, and a more lucrative one at that? I would have replied, why not, but society frowns when we are flippant about our work.

So I gave my spiel: I want to save the planet for the children, the six billion people who live here, and for myself. I want to save the planet because it makes getting up in the morning easier. There’s a certain bounce in your day when you know that your energies are going to a good cause. I save the planet because it reminds me that there are things bigger than myself. This last one is particularly useful for egotists such as myself who tend to believe that the earth does not revolve around the sun but around me.

It’s so easy to take yourself seriously. It’s even easier when you think you’re doing the world the favor. I’m saving the world, can this waitress please make sure that she brings me my coffee while it’s still hot?

There’s the tendency to think you’re special, unique, different. Everyone else is busy making buck, climbing the corporate ladder, making a name for themselves, and here you are, diligently making sure that the planet is still around the next hundreds of years to meet the following generation’s incessant craving.

It’s easy to feel like Jesus Christ. We are the business of saving after all.

My answer satisfied my co-blogger and I was free to go on with my life, one less question to deal with.

I do what I do because this is where I am. This is what I have to do. I believe that wherever you find your self is exactly where you’re supposed to be at this very moment.
So look. Listen. Be still. You’ll find the divine there. The reason for your very existence. Or at least a certain amount of satisfaction. Anything is beautiful if you look at it long enough. (And all amount of beauty might as well be lost if you do not stop long enough to see it.)

The writers write “not for money and acceptance-although that would be nice. The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world, and why not finally carry the secret out with our bodies. Let the whole thing flower: the poem and the person writing the poem. And let us always be kind in this world”.

And I write because I love the planet. Because I love all life.

Why do I want to save the world?

I suppose this question will crop up in our lives every now and then. As it should. There is a need to step back, gain a little perspective and see if our lives are really the lives we want to live. Are we living it right? But think too much and you have to slow down all too often. We can’t waste much time thinking. There is work to be done.

It is like a writer’s tendency to edit. If a writers write, she must write and leave the editing for later. To write and editing for the same time produces stilted poetry. If you allow yourself to go all out, if you let yourself go crazy on paper, then it becomes an adventure.

So I write. I save the planet. And I try to think about it.