The 11th hour

Every day, I feel like I've taken the wrong route.

From the smallest of choices (a piece of Nutella toast- to eat or not to eat?), to ones that really weren't under my control (ought we to have moved back the US at all?)- every day I catch myself wondering if, unlike Frost, I'd made all the difference with the road I've taken, but not in the very positive manner his choice appeared to affect him. Doubts, confusions, and a nagging sense of 'this is wrong, this isn't what I want'- all this comes with the terrible, terrible memory of a choice.

The biggest one is probably the same that assails most people- what do I really want to do? What to do I really care about? One month ago, I was sure English Literature was the course I was cut out for, the path I wanted my life to follow. I'm not so sure anymore.

I've always prided myself on love for the 'environment', always spoken (more than a little boastful of my own perceived sensitivity) of the torments the human race inflicts on Gaia, and other poetic lines that conveyed the urgency and the supreme catastrophe the Earth seems to be heading towards. It's only when I watch documentaries, or read articles or books that really deal with the crises (various as they are) that threatens our globe that that seriousness of my own boasts hits me. And that's what I'm worried about now. What do I want to do?

I want to help. Not necessarily help people (I'm not a community person), but perhaps, indirectly. I want to be a part of the band that wants to make a difference to what's happening to the Earth, I want to help heal her, or get her on the road to recovery. Of course, I'm not impertinent enough to assume that Gaia can't take care of herself, but it's what I want to do: at least help her, in any way I can.

Marx once said that a problem only arises when the materials necessary for its solution already exist/are in the making. I never really enjoyed what I read of the man, but this is one reassuring thought that's stuck with me. Perhaps we can make a difference, all of us. Perhaps we can hope to make amends for what we've done, are still doing, to this planet.

I've rambled from where I began, something about choices. Well, as I see it, we're all suffering that indecision now. It's time to put regrets behind and pitch ourselves into the present. Carpe diem, as one of my teachers shouted exuberantly, often enough.

There's no reason I can't enjoy Milton and help stop deforestation at the same time. In fact, I think the two go hand in hand. Save the best of the past, but also, invest in the best of the future.

I sincerely hope Marx was right. But hey, so many people seem to think he was absolutly dead on in other things, mayhaps he's not so far off the mark here.

That, as Gandalf once said, is an encouraging thought.