Brevity is not often a described quality of mine, so I will save the waxing poetic for after the tl;dr: follow the link in the bio to watch my thesis defense ( • Sustainable Tourism: Wishful Thinking… ) click the following link to read all 143 pages (Carbon Neutral Ecotourism).
Carbon! Travel! Buzz words (a la sustainability) and how they can be problematic! This video is a slice of my process for production, and I am happy to report this is my first musically arranged performance as a soundtrack, ft. motifs from 28 Days Later, Pretty Lights, Watsky, and Eminem.
And now, back to the regularly scheduled, verbose programming.
For most of my adult life, I have moved about the world, considerate of, but unencumbered by the effects of my travel. To call myself an environmentalist and fly dozens of times per year was covertly swept under the dilemma rug for as long as I could muster. To my extended community, you’ve probably already seen some changes. I have stayed inside today, escaping the smoke from nature ablaze. Deserts in the southwest are flooding at this same moment. The point of this message is not to add to the doom pile. The future is yet to be; what path can we forge?
So this was my undertaking. How can we look at travel (this amalgamation of transport, food, cultures, economics, municipalities, and energy) in a light that isn’t predicated on extraction? We tout travel as a means of education, enlightenment, an engrossing experiential microcosm with each venture. We help connect to others and help others connect with the catalysts of nature, culture, and experience. Yet, have we simply made a new way to consume what were formerly considered intangibles?
Pursue experience. Pay for what makes you feel alive. If I didn’t feel credence in such sentiments, I wouldn’t have focalized such ideas at the center of how I’ve arranged my life. But the thing about learning—your values change. And what has someone to guide their choices but these principles. This is a hard road to traverse. Life, if we want to get existential; how we operate as a society; if we want to get a little more grounded; how to stop depending on the credit of the past and future by burning stuff to keep the party going at its unruly pace, if we want to call a spade a spade. How many times have you heard, “If you don’t have the money to tip, don’t eat out?” Well, most facets of our society, industry, and day to day have been relegating every item to the tab, for a future version of us to shake the coffers to cover the bill.
In my motions, in my search (for…purpose? Belonging? Fulfillment? Surely a blend of those and many others), home has been illusory at times, omnipresent at others. It has been found in moments with strangers or simply within the vessel that is my body. It has felt a billion miles away, with hope for a return journey long lost. I haven’t grown a garden. I don’t have a cat. My community is tethered by very authentic, but irregularly irregular communication via errant messages, voice memos, letters, or feelings of goodwill across the ether. But in this, lessons abound, with one particularly prominent. That the litany of souls, places, and moments that I have had the propensity to steer towards and simply be there for by coincidence can reveal to me something:
There is so much out there worthy of pursuit. Beauty takes cultivation; it does not simply continue. Life ends. Life continues. And the finitude of time makes the weight of choice crushing but truly illuminates what is important.
For me, without nature, there is nothing. How do we begin to incorporate this once more into our lives? My journey is now woven into assessing how systems either pump gasoline from the firehose or offer a respite to our rampant pace. Recognition is but a start, but the weight is in action. And though a different type of weight it can be, understanding and moving towards what a more just, genuinely sustainable world is what I aim to continue exploring, hoping to continue enjoying the ride along the way.
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