For Brains that Never Stop

It's often hard for me to tell my brain to stop thinking about structural oppression and injustice, feminism, racism, income inequality, the heterosexual assumption, media misrepresentation, war, hate, social constructs, homelessness, development, international aid and relief, inaccessibility of  and other social justice issues.  When should these things in everyday life be pointed out - and when should they be accepted, however grudgingly?  For instance, the often-cited example of spending $5 on a coffee when so much of the world lives on much less than that every day. Messages sent in music, advertising and popular television? I don't know the answer - but I do know that I'm not prepared to remain ignorant to these issues and the host of other injustices I have yet to even begin to understand. 

The reason I stop thinking is because not to stop thinking would change everything.  Being able to 'stop thinking' further perpetuates all that I think about in so many ways.  I understand why many people just don't think about these things - and don't like it when others point them out - allowing yourself to go there is messy.  What can I live with accepting, and where do I draw the line?  When do you settle? 

Society is constructed by all of us - by everyone who buys in and everyone who doesn't. As much as being one person is overwhelming and hard and I continually question what it actually does - it is what I can do, right now in this moment. And I hereby resolve to be that one person.  To spend less money on Starbucks and use it to give someone else the basics. To reduce my carbon footprint. To challenge and question, to listen and learn. To not eat meat for a number of reasons (half the world's harvest is fed to farm animals; 800 million people go hungry.) Yes, that means cows and pigs - which we then kill to eat - are better fed than humans. (Check out www.eatlessmeat.org for more).  Even a 50% reduction in meat consumption by 2020 could mean 3.6 million fewer starving children.  To not eat junk food - which is related to income inequality, food insecurity, obesity and Western excess. And poor health. To never use plastic bags.

Some people don't look: "Today what might be unpleasant or personally demanding, but is not actually seen, is often ignored" (Chambers, Rural poverty unperceived). I am choosing to look, and not to blink. And move the line further from where it is now,  and to accept less of what is going on, and to challenge our politicians and world  leaders to do the same.  We have reached a point where many movie stars and other celebrities (Stephen Spielberg is personally boycotting Bejing because of the Chinese government's complicity in Darfur and refusal to recognize its domestic human rights violations) are doing more to fix this stuff than so called "world leaders".  Darfur is going to be our Holocaust - if future generations are less racist than this one anyways - and instead of leaders who stepped up, our legacy will be leaders who stepped down, or turned their heads, or said our military was busy. There are more ways than guns to make a difference. Stephen Spielberg figured that out ahead of the rest of the world.

Some of these things are easier than others, and all of them are easier said than done. My life won't change overnight; Rome wasn't built in a day. But I am one person. And I am one person with the power to make choices every day to make things better, to buy into systems of inequality - or not. And making one more choice to do one less thing that makes this world a better place is what I can - and will - do.