Why Beat Your Head Against The Wall?

 I have a pen pal. I've never met him in person. I never will. We connected online, on a political blog site called Daily Kos, where anyone who follows what they call the Rules of the Road is welcomed to contribute, either writing articles or commenting on those of others. I've mentioned this before.

We connected over the issue of climate change. Then took our conversation off those pages and onto email pages. He has time and resources (internet) for research deep into what others are publishing from their own science and data, and shares with people who will listen. I have watched the list of people he sends joint emails out to grow, albeit slowly, and some of those pass the information and sources on back at the original blog site for a much wider audience. 

The following discussions can be long and interesting, occasionally frustrating, as the large crowd splits into two basic sections. The first sees the progression of the changes, has learned about the tipping points, and is "watching" them tip, and  recognizes it's happening at increasing speed while most of the world sits on the information and evidence, ignored, and/or inactive.

The second group is mostly newer on the scene, hasn't watched the progression speed up, doesn't yet know the significance, and is absolutely sure it won't be happening till after they and theirs are dust. (Well literally that is kind of true. They just don't see how things speeding up will cause that dust rather than slow aging like their parents did.) This second group is absolutely certain that somebody, somewhere, will find the magic bullet to stop the process in its tracks and reverse it in time to avert disaster, because we humans are clever and can engineer our way out of whatever mess we've made.

Each group gets frustrated with the other, naturally. It is out of this frustration that my pen pal asked me a question this morning. I took him seriously. I always do, and he tells me he appreciates it. He's currently pretty isolated, aside from a few people helping him with the things he needs while he lasts, stuck home, and in official hospice status.

The topic of his latest dive into other's climate research was about what they call a "double blue ocean event". It is tracking the decreasing amount of polar ice, noting how the process is its own feedback loop in our warming world, and extrapolating how fast it might be until no polar ice remains to keep us within survivable temperatures. It raises the possibility that point could be reached in 2025. That's how important the feedback loop part of the math is. He sent me the link to the research to go over. (If you want to read it for yourself you have to ask. I'm not going to browbeat you with it.)

Yes, that science is grim. And the question my pen pal asked, out of his frustration for all his fighting and spreading the word to those who would hear, was so likely to be useless, was why was he still beating his head against the wall? Or in other words, what was the point of still fighting to get people to pay attention and do something when likely it was now pointless and he wouldn't be around to see it anyway?

After some chatty news, I decided to answer his question, as I heard it:

"As for why beat your head against the wall? You still care. Simple as that. Despite being in hospice, despite being in pain, despite how hopeless everything looks, you still care. Whether or not you're around to "live" through it, you are a normal, feeling human being. (Unlike some we won't name for the moment.) And because you still care, you keep reaching out to others, like me who can't do a damn thing about it but still insists on putting in a garden just for the beauty of it, and possibly to some who can pass it on to others till the ones who can make changes will hear and act. Because we humans hope until we're past the point where hope has any logic in the world. And we have learned, we who read and explore and care, that way beyond us there will be something else here, some new life we can't understand yet, filling and molding this big blue ball on some time scale we can write in numbers but not truly comprehend, and accept we haven't been that omniscient and omnipotent after all. That's why."