At a Christmas party over winter break, I experienced an event familiar to many students who encounter an old friend or acquaintance in their hometowns. Voila, the high school straightjacket 4.2 GPA good boy everyone recalled as the attractive, charismatic over-achiever, sitting in front of me with scraggly long hair and a ski hat. His porcupine stubble chin failed to detract from his lively statement as he recalled to me his adventures traveling in his truck "up and down California" as an enlightened nomad. This wanderer recently graduated with Physics and Philosophy degrees from Stanford, so I felt this sense of awe and intrigue that someone could outright forsake "the system" for an unpredictable journey around the country. A "Fight Club" sensation permeated my bones, as I thought in a moment I'd be outside beating myself up. I mean, this guy was like my alter ego.
Yikes! One cannot help but feel introspective after meeting someone of such caliber. This coming May, me and hundreds of other fellow AU seniors will graduate sporting degrees in Communications, Political Science, Biology or you name it. What is our Rite of Passage? Is it gifts from relatives or family, the inspiring speeches at the Graduation Ceremony, a celebration cruise in the Bahamas? More importantly, how will we choose to live our lives? Is Mr.-Degrees-at-Stanford's choice more admirable than rushing to law school in pursuit of the young professional lifestyle?
With these questions bubbling my neurons, certain insights emerged upon reading a book called The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann. If anyone feels displaced or disoriented by life in its many shades and competing market interests, I would recommend reading this ecologically minded book. Firstly, the book showed a graph monitoring population growth since the advent of Homo-sapiens-sapiens thousands of years ago. Around 1800, the population was one billion, now it has spiraled to 6 billion. Aside from the many ecological disasters Hartmann chronicles, one concept particularly stood out that has rendered me an insomniac, a concept that in understanding I have found to be my Rite of Passage.
This concept: sunlight. Light is the energy which plants use to photosynthesize, which animals like ourselves consume to trudge along our merry way. Light is energy that helps us metabolize, when we walk, sleep, eat, and masturbate. But think about it deeper. How have we harnessed energy so well as to build a civilization with cars and highways and McDonalds? One may first think of the Industrial Revolution, and before that the exploitation of low-paid workers and slaves (who says that doesn't continue?). Perhaps an automatic response would be coal or oil, and guess what that is? Vegetation million of years old buried underground, a deposit of ancient sunlight. And when our candy bowl is empty, we bicker about the recent OPEC cut while milk stills costs more a barrel than oil. And as we all know, oil will be depleted in 50 years, so sunlight withdrawal indeed will be more painful than quitting smoking or life long celibacy.
And where am I going with this rampage? Remember Einstein, theory of relativity, gravity-defying hair? Light equals time! Thus I have concluded that Western Civilization is on speed! By boiling oil, abusing energy resources, we are actually all artificially accelerating time in some insatiable drive for self-fulfillment.
If you have gotten this far, I am impressed. This indeed was my Rite of Passage revelation. Right now, whether or not we care to admit it, we are riding the surf of a declining civilization. The fall of the Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all related to energy resource problems, and we will tumble just like them.
What does this mean? Upon graduation, be aware of your possessions. Where was everything you owned originally made? And then, make a decision for the rest of this semester. This decision: don't eat at the McDonalds on campus! Burning the Amazon for cattle is the primary cause of rising temperatures. And remember that each decision is precious. Learn about the world by living courageously, and work hard for a clear good! Even if this involves traveling with hobos "up and down California"
