Make things better
Friday. Here’s to making the best of it - for everyone. ~JRC
I've been thinking a lot about the purpose - the greater good there is - in making. For me, this means questioning my career path and wondering if I should be doing something else. But I've been through this before, which landed me where I am now. Still, is it the right path? Is making - creating - any good at all in a world that needs somehow less rather than more?
Yes, human creativity serves many roles in our lives, from improving health to creating better connections with others to providing entertainment & joy. But this world is struggling with huge dilemmas: COVID and climate change, famine and war, political injustice and discrimination, overconsumption, and excess waste. All of these we could do without.
Sometimes it feels as if no progress has been made. Life should be better for so many more with all the technology and new-found knowledge - and new stuff - at our disposal. And yet, great disparities exist, and the divide between the haves and have-nots continues to grow.
Meanwhile, the habitable land itself appears to be shrinking - crowded streets and busy suburbs sprawl into the countryside. Populations expand as shorelines disappear. We are ballooning out at a time when this small world is getting smaller.
Making, then - creating new stuff - is a conundrum. As a society, we need things; we consume to live. But many of us live to consume. The shipping delays and port congestion worldwide are a testament to this. How many of those Amazon packages contain items we truly need?
And is all my making making things any better? Or is it simply consumerism relabeled? Am I making things worse?
I don't have the answers. And if you think you do, you might be fooling yourself. We have an exceedingly complex set of challenges in front of us that simple solutions will unlikely solve. But I know that finding honest, constructive things to do with our lives helps. It must help. Because what else is there to do?
Making, then, is far better than destroying. At least I tell myself this.
If true, it has to be about making the right way and for the right reasons. We all must question why we do what we do. And despite all the doubt, we must find a path that serves our planet as much as it does our hearts.
Are we simply making to make? Or are we making things better?
Until next time.
JRC
Hard to respond, who knows ?