Floods

‘Tis the season, after all

I debated with myself whether to send this one out this week, given its tone. And content. You know, the “peace on earth, goodwill toward all” Holiday season and all. But then I thought, that’s kinda the point. And timely news/content is timely for a reason. Turned out, I won the debate.

So….

Photos courtesy of local area newspapers

Here in my neck of the woods, in the Great Pacific Northwest—Washington state, to be specific, Snohomish county, to be specifiker, (intentional y’all), we’ve had enough with the water now, thank you. It’s kinda a myth we get rain “all the time” up here in these parts; but it’s a myth we perpetuate ‘cuz although we love to have ya visit what is perhaps some of the most beautiful environments in all the world, here where we live, we also love to wave goodbye to ya as y’all go back to your own homes, in your states, far away from us. (Just kidding…, kinda).

Anyway, you’ve likely heard of the historic flooding we’ve had here in the past two weeks. They have been historic, with local rivers cresting dozens of feet above flood stages (DOZENS!!!). We credit the weather phenomenon known as an “atmospheric river” that has dumped massive amounts of rain in short bursts of time.

And it’s still raining. Oh, and the winds are picking up now too—imagine what happens when sustained gusts of wind, upwards of 50 mph, blows through stands of 150+ ft. trees whose roots are in rain-soaked and over-saturated soil. Yeah, you’ve imagined it correctly.

I am tempted to say we’ve been lucky, here at my own homestead, my intentional sanctuary. But that wouldn’t be accurate—any harm done to any other Being, human and more than human (because I cannot not think of the countless animals, domesticated and wild, whom I count as my neighbors too, whom are likewise impacted in their own unique ways), is harm I feel too—my own form of empathic distress.

Nature is just being nature; and she’s reminding us of Her awesome power. It’s times like these when I’m reminded we humans are just in Her way. It’s not like She hasn’t done stuff like this before; it’s more like we humans aren’t too quick on the learning, or think it won’t happen to us. So we build homes and businesses in known flood zones, and valleys below riverbanks. And we both clearcut and pave over land that usually acts as a natural sponge.

But, this isn’t the flood I want to talk about here, “bad” as it is. The flood I want to talk about is man-made, and causes more harm, more moral harm, even more ecological harm, than any flood by Nature’s own providence. Humans do make natural floods worse, there is no doubt to that. But this other flood is one most of us participate in without even knowing or understanding we are its sole cause… and potential solution.

The ‘Tis the Season’ Part

I don’t watch a lot of television—maybe a movie or two every other month; mostly sports (especially if the Seahawks and Mariners are playing!); and yes, religiously, Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, Sunday Day Football, and the Great British Baking Show. And occasionally some other shows whose fancy I may have caught (or vise versa).

Before I get to my punchline, I need to make sure you know I’m not a Scrooge or Grinch. Though I love both stories! Fun Fact: did you know this is the 25th anniversary since Jim Carrey’s Grinch hit theaters??? If you haven’t seen it, see it. I digress.

I love the Holiday season too—and now that I’m retired from my former day job as a career public school educator and administrator, I’m loving it for different reasons than my usual “respite from the hard work.”

Anyway, back to my TV habits; I’m finding I’m most enthralled (annoyed? disgusted?) with television commercials. Do you ever pause from whatever show or game your watching and, instead of getting up to use the bathroom, get a drink, eat a snack, or bake a loaf of sourdough, actually watch, with intention, the commercials that so many corporations spend billions of dollars producing just to gain our attention?

I do.

I do because I know commercials are lucrative, mini psychological experiments with us as Skinnerian lab rats; and when you know this, you see commercials differently.

There is a lot that goes into the planning of a television advertisement. More than anything, it’s an expensive gamble/play on the human psyche; specifically, commercials are how corporations prey on a fundamental human trait that, evolutionarily speaking, kept us alive in pre-industrial eras—AKA our innate fear:

When you see an advertisement, think amygdala and dopamine!

Fear that we don’t have enough, that we aren’t enough, that we aren’t skinny enough, that we aren’t eating the right fast food (or enough of it), that we aren’t pretty enough, that our hair isn’t bouncy and shiny enough; that we aren’t driving the right car; that we don’t own enough dish sponges or shoes or countertop appliances.

In other words, that we don’t have enough stuff.

Here’s where The Flood of my title comes in! (Thanks for your patience.)

On the whole, the Christmas season is no longer about anything else other than helping to make a diminishing number of companies, more and more money, by getting us to buy more and more stuff.

Period.

It is said most companies, especially the smallers and locals, count on the holiday season to take them, and their bottom lines, from the red to the black.

Which is another way of saying they need us to buy more stuff.

Let me make this personal. If you’ve read me in this space recently, you know I’m a new grandpa. I have an absolutely beautiful nine month old grandson. I’ve told you we “take our part” in the Christmas holiday season—code for, we play the capitalism game and give money away so that we can get stuff to gift stuff. But every year I try to do so more mindfully of the impact my choices have. When it comes to my grandson though, I didn’t expect to experience the internal pressure I felt to “spoil him rotten” with toys, toys, maybe some clothes, and then more toys.

It’s a known fact, as shared by a family member not that long ago that I’d reckon rings bells for others too: if you have children in your lives, and you are close to them such that you feel compelled to buy them presents for Christmas and birthdays, that the only time you’ve likely ever seen them touch, let alone play with, those toys are in the moments right after they opened them, because they’ve gone on to the other gifts they were bought; OR the toys were soon lost in the ever-growing piles of “long ago” (ie last year’s) toys stored in bedrooms, and closets, and boxes, and garages, and whose sole purpose now is to serve as surfaces for dust to settle upon, or spiders and mites to hide in. (C’mon now, you know what I’m talking about here!).

My grandson’s nine months old. He’d be completely happy with a couple Tupperware lids, a measuring cup, and a spatula in a box. He may even be fully content with just the box!

I know now, because I can’t “unknow” it, that I’m supposed to know better. I’m in the role of Elder and potential Sage to my grandson, if he chooses to see me that way. So, I should know and act better in how I choose to “spoil him rotten.” (What a weird saying, btw.) I know that I can spoil him more meaningfully with love, and attention, and presence, and hugs, and experiences—none of which requires the purchase of stuff. He can learn (as we all should), that joy does not come from having stuff. Now, receiving gifts IS cause for happiness, so please understand my intentions. We live on a planet of which we’re not taking care—and eventually we will experience the full ramifications of those consequences (we’re experiencing some of them now; many species have gone extinct already because of human choices). I know that MY choices in gift giving matter—just as much to the environment as to my gift’s receiver.

Commercials wouldn’t be what they are, though, if they didn’t work. Such is the power of human psychology and the billions of dollars these corporations can throw at us to manipulate our habits by preying on our fears. As a consequence of this powerful manipulation, we buy things. LOTS of things. The deluge is self-initiated when we’ve lost sight of our ability to think more deeply about all of this. Because…

…eventually, all that staff has to go somewhere. In my region, the atmospheric river dumped historic rain that had to go somewhere when the natural or man-made methods (eg levees, canals, reservoirs, emboldened riverbanks) to “steer” it harmlessly away, toward the ocean, failed—therefore flood. Just as there are hurricane seasons, there are also flood seasons around the globe. Water always goes somewhere. All of the stuff we buy goes somewhere. And when it rains a lot, a lot of stuff ends up under water.

Another thing capitalism counts on, that companies exploit through planned obsolescence and advertising, is that the stuff you bought not that long ago is going to be useless soon, and then you’ll “need” new stuff to replace the old stuff. Again, psychology and brain chemistry at work.

Though the danger of this flood spans the entire year, the Holiday season is a flood season on a different scale, one no less consequential in the damage and harm caused, mainly because we don’t want to acknowledge our role in it. Or worse, like the worst of climate impact deniers, we see no problem whatsoever.

Screenshots from the documentary shared below, courtesy of Netflix. Facetious floods? Don’t kid yourself.

All of this, for me, is to repeat a mantra I’ve come to be saying more and more of late:

“Things don’t have to be this way.”

Do YOU know what it takes to make things different? Hint: It’s not rocket science.

I’m not going to “spoiler alert” you here, because I’m going to trust you know what it takes and don’t need me to preach on ya, though I have a feeling I’m preaching to most of the choir.

I’ll just end with two teasers and then give YOU the choice of where you want to place your attention; each of which, more than anything else in our media-addicted lives (‘cuz there are also some great books out there on these themes too), encapsulate the full nature and impact of this particular flood—this moral and ecological degradation that is a direct result of our unchecked, runaway capitalism—ie, An HISTORIC FLOOD.

If I were president, and you should thank your lucky stars I’m not, but if I were, I’d make watching these two shows a mandatory (by signing an Executive Order using an auto pen of course!) part of your gun buying process, your car registration, your driver’s license renewal, your mortgage loan application, your immigration and naturalization process, your tax refund, your marriage license, your passport application, your social security payments, your medicare benefit, and even your death certificate—yes, even that! You don’t get out of responsibility by dying. And there’s no way, now, you can say a president can’t do any of that! We’re WAY past that point of no return, aren’t we now.

But really, if you are a conscientious and compassionate person who really would like to take better care of our environment, our mental health, and our children, and who also knows the costs of moral failures—know that they outweigh the costs of actual floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes—then you’d be served well by having a look at both of these offerings—one, a current, real-world account of how capitalism, corporate predatory practices, and the myth of “sustainable growth” are killing our planet and our moral integrity; the other, a prophetic and accurate look at the dystopian “future” that seems to be already here, by the brilliant minds at Pixar Animation.

If you have seen these, or will see these, circle back to me, okay? I’d love to hear your take after you’ve had these couple doses of knowledge (preferably, the full doc and movie—not just these teasers).

If you are in any way a feeling, empathetic person, I doubt you’ll be unaffected by them. But be forewarned: once you’ve seen them, once you “know,” you cannot unknow. You can, of course ignore it. Or not care.

But look around to where THAT’s got us.

The biblical myth teaches how Noah had to build an ark to survive a world-wide flood. We don’t need any such boat, or myth, to stop and prevent this other flood—and yet, I don’t think we humans, especially here in the West, have it in us to stop the deluge. It’s powerful psychology at work—and the ones controlling the manipulations do not have our, nor the earth’s, interest in mind.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

(But it’s still raining.)

---

Always and Ubuntu,

~ k

🙏🏼

And remember, I’m NOT a Grinch. Or Scrooge.

Honest.

My grandson’s gonna have a GREAT Holiday!