Monday, June 7, 2010

Throw It Away?

I've found that enlightenment can come through my work, in a sort of roundabout way.

Sweeping up the parking lot is one of those things that we have to do every day, so it should be pretty routine stuff, right? It should just be like, go outside and sweep up some trash and shit. Not literal shit. I use that in a general way.

Anyway, it's really not as routine as it should be. Every work day, I go out there, and I'm just in absolute awe at how many cigarette butts and discarded fast food items are out there. I'm convinced that every single cigarette butt and wood-tipped cigar ends up right in front of the Quick Stop. So, I'd like the smokers reading this to keep that in mind next time you think about flicking that butt out of your car window or dropping it in front of the movie theater before you catch the 3 o'clock showing of some shit Ashton Kutcher movie. Somebody has to clean that up, ya know.

And that person is me two days a week. So fucking quit it.

It during this task the other day that I was pondering on a discarded Camel and had the most amazing revelation:

Of course we can't eradicate famine and war. We live in a society where people can't even be trusted to throw their scratch-off lottery tickets and cigarette butts in a trash can. Honestly, why would you throw your entire McDonalds meal on the ground when there's a proper receptacle not even seven damn feet away from where you parked your car? Maybe I just don't believe in the good in people, but I have a hard time convincing myself that you threw your half-eaten double cheeseburger on the asphalt in order to let it biodegrade. It's not like there are any recycling bins. You don't have to sort paper or plastic, just one place where everything goes. And that place is not the goddamn ground. It just confounds me that we've been able to work together to form semi-functional communities, seeing our utter lack of ability to complete small tasks.

Yes, I'd love, love, love to see the human race beat HIV/AIDS, end ethnic genocide AND sort out this whole distribution of natural resources business that 6.5 billion people are so worried about. But I'm also a big 'little things' guy. Baby steps, people.

There's a lot of problems in the world that we're not going to fix in our lifetime. There's some problems that won't ever be fixed, That's because, deep down, we're just animals fighting for land and a better standard of living. But if you ever feel like you might want to break away from being an animal, from competing with everyone else for living space, just do a little thing.

Pick up a piece of trash in the street. Let someone merge in front of you in traffic. Remember to smile at people you don't know. These are little, tiny, miniscule things. But, despite being so insignificant, they'll eventually add up. I believe that.

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