When a door is opened for you, do you go through?
I can’t help but think of the great doors that have opened to us through the events that we tumble through. Fires, viruses, weather, politics and people.
We have so many open for us right now. So many we, as a society could choose to go through. Yet, I fear we will blunder on and stick to the path that bought us here. One of continuous growth and expansion. In the name of economics, we put greed at the top of the list and help the wealthiest get more, and squeeze the poor, the environment and society.
Here in Australia the rhetoric is coal and gas expansion. We throw away our federal arts department. Environmental activists are treated like criminals for peaceful protests, even our children who ask us to do something positive about climate change are devalued and shunned.
What have we become, when we continue to vote with our pockets and let the media tell us what to think.
Why aren’t we hunting out corruption at all levels of society and in particular our political systems? Why are they above the same scrutiny the rest of us live in every day?
When did evidence based science become a conspiracy?
Look carefully and you see money is behind most of these. Political power that ensures the path we continue down is maintained.
I hope we can choose a different door. There are so many opportunities right now. Ones that can take us to a future that I would love to leave for our children and our future.
I wonder what I can do as an individual about it? Write. Talk. Promote. Share. Support. Propose.
These doorways are filled with sadness. Taken at a diamond mine in Namibia that was run with slaves. I will never buy a diamond for vanity again.
Photograph and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2020