Refusing To Ruin A Pretty Day With Reality

THE LUNCH LINE at the senior center moves fast; the kitchen ladies keep those blue trays sliding through the window. One at a time the hungry old folks snatch 'em up, and head for the lunch room tables. Not much time for conversation in line. So the guy behind me, a nice guy and a friend of mine, says to me "beautiful day". Standard, innocuous, lunch line stuff. And in fact it was a beautiful day; bright sunny, mild, but not hot, about eighty degrees, calm wind. The sort of day which once not so long ago this time of year have been considered a marvelous fluke, a great blessing of a pretty day in a normally blustery, chilly season, mid October. These days, where I live, in lower midwest America, eighty and ninety degree days in October are no longer flukish, or nonexistent. They have become the norm. Over the past couple of decades, around here, October has become a summer month. The guy behind me didnt seem to mind. The normal response would have been to simply smile and agree, yes, it was a beautiful day. Only I didn't do that. Sometimes I do what is expected of me, more often, I do not. Instead I sile t my buddy, and said: "True, it is a beautiful day, but I have at least two problems with it. For one, its too hot for October. It shouldn't be eighty or ninety degrees every day in October, and secondly, it hasn't rained around here in six weeks." I can't remember whether I actually used the term "climate change", or mentioned it at all, but he apparently understood my meaning, for he replied. "I can't take on the problems of the world. I have enough of my own." I also understood his meaning, what he was trying to say. He can't worry about climate change, and he can't spend valuable time fretting about war, disease, famine, or natural disasters,or any of the world's other perpetual problems which he cannot solve; he can't affored to worry about whatever it is that causes climate change, whether its real or not; either way, he has to live his own life, the best he can. It wasn't so much that he was disagreeing with me, or questioning my right or my intent is making my climate change comments. But he simply wasn't going to worry about it.The thought came to me that I might do well to learn a lesson from my friend; maybe I could use a little less fretting about the problems of the world, all of which are entirely beyond my capacity to solve, as a means of reducing the self infliced stress and anxiety in my life. Still, something about his point of view disressed me. It brought to mind all the millions and tens of millions of people who undoubtedly have the same attitude he does. Would we humans be doing a better job of addressing climate change if more of us were deeply, overtly concerned about it? My thought is that if all eight billion people on planet Earth were believers in and terrified of climate change, like I am, then maybe we humans would have the political will, as they say, that we seem to currently lack, to collectively solve the climate change problem through concerted, organized planning and action. What I wanted to say to my friend, and perhaps what I should have said, is: "You dont have to worry about or care about climate change. It doesnt matter either way what you do, or what you think. Because, sooner, rather than later. No, my friend, you indeed do not have to take on the problems of the world. Soon enough, sooner rather than later, the problems of the world, including climate change, will come straight, directly to you. Lunch, as always, was delicious, on this beautiful, summery October day.