Episode 31: All the Little Deaths
Synopsis
Today's episode was primarily inspired by a short clip I heard of Rich Roll interviewing a farmer with a primary concern for preservation and respect of life. Rich and John's conversation made a strong backdrop for my own thoughts to play out about whether respect is scalable at all, what does harm reduction look like in action - in our daily and personal lives, in our inner worlds. Somewhere between my bath tub and the worms in Tibet, I think you'll find something interesting and useful. Thanks for being present with me for this one!
Show Notes
On Episode 482 of the Rich Roll Podcast, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRBoXE3pw80&t=4225s
Today I want to take you on a journey of realization I personally had. Seeds get planted in our lives. Sometimes I fall hard on seeds.
10 years ago in October I moved to the pacific northwest for the mountains before I had any idea what they would truly mean to me.
I soon found out though – from Powell’s books that first Saturday, from the hiking to the mountainnering section.
To REI for my very first raincoat and someone said, You should meet the Mazamas.
To an annual festival where an alpine legend was the headliner, months after I climbed my first legitimate mountains, glaciers and all.
When Barry Blanchard shared the impact that the book about the man-eating mountain made on him when he was 5 years old, while on the train back from his grandparents’.
How I devoured Heinrich Harrer’s first book and then the next: 7 Years in Tibet. 10 years ago. We’ll get back to that soon.
Fastforward 10 years…
Last week I was on Instagram and Dave Asprey shared a clip of Rich Roll interviewing John Chester. The vegan athlete talks with John & Molly Chester, the creators of 'The Biggest Little Farm' , a documentary that evidences the planet’s innate power to heal itself in synchronous partnership with humans devoted to restoring its precious biodiversity.The clip starts with John talking, and I’ll read you what I heard, if you can bear with it. Because the way Rich rounds out the conversation made such an impression on me. Keep in mind please that I am not vegan, and I personally have no stake or personal experience of vegans throwing stones – in glass houses or otherwise. It’s for the universal applicability of the conversation, of the dilemma, of the conflict, that I took interest. And I’ll share exactly why after if you’re interested.
John says,
“I’m going to tell your audience something that not many farmers would ever admit. This happens on all farms. If you like eating avocados, for a farmer to grow avocados financially, especially biodynamically where we’re enhancing the ecosystem and helping nature, we have to grow at least 20 to 40 acres of avocados, and we have to be able to sell those directly to a market, to our consumer.
“So here we are farming 20 to 40 acres. That’s going to require me to kill at least 35 to 40,000 gophers to protect those trees. Hummingbirds accidentally when I spray non-synthetically derived organic spray, accidentally killing bees, accidentally killing ladybugs, and intentionally killing ground squirrels.
“So there are 50 to 100,000 deaths that happen just to grow avocados. And my point is that none of us are getting out of this without blood on our hands. It’s just at what point and how connected are you to the process, but that doesn’t excuse you from the reverence and the responsibility for life.”
Then Rich speaks.
“Yeah I think there’s a misplaced delusion that pervades a certain section of the community who have kind of tricked themselves into believing that because they’re not eating animals, that they’ve opted out completely from this cycle of life and harm. And I just think the facts don’t bear that out. And no matter who you are and no matter how delicately you dance on planet Earth, we’re all contributing to harm in some way.
“And I think it speaks to this broader issue of the complexity of all of this, which is basically what the movie [The Biggest Little Farm] is about. This is incredibly complex and dynamic, and the minute you think you have your hands on it, it will surprise you in a new and different way.
“And my allegiance is only, I said this to you the other day, is only to truth, and I’m always trying to check dogma as much as I can, and I consider myself a compassionate vegan, but I’m not under the misapprehension that because I only eat fruits, vegetables, and grains, that that is not contributing in some negative way towards these problems that we all care about, and that we’re trying to reverse. And I think having a mature perspective on that is more beneficial than slinging arrows at people and calling names. And I just think people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
And he says,
“And the moment you start to think that you’re better than another human being or holier than thou or stand from a place of judgment is the minute that we lose that ability to have empathy. And empathy is what we need right now. That is what the world is starving for. And if we want to see our way forward together collectively, we have to figure out how to unite around our shared principles, to do what’s in the best interest for the preservation of the planet, and to do it in the most compassionate way possible with an appreciation for the challenges, nuances, and complexities of all of this.”
I want to give some space for his words at the end.
What I felt when I first heard the talk, I actually didn’t know which one was Rich when I watched it – I felt a little cynicism coming through. I wondered, why was he so keen to point out the incongruencies. Was it not unjudicious. I felt the pressure within myself that I put on myself all the time to give the benefit of the doubt. To never generalize. To focus on what is good, what is just, what is possible.
The slight cynicism I interpreted, that I heard, maybe it was there, maybe it was not.
I have to wonder looking back, whether I only inferred it because of the tight constraints I place around my own shrewd and discerning, protective and just nature when it observes something unkind, but I restrain myself from pointing it out. Restraint not born always of wisdom, but often born of mistrust of my own reaction, when reactions in the past have seemed too harsh by my own standard.
Because when I listened to the interview clip a second time, it is the second half of Rich’s speech – which stood out to me. The compassion, the understanding, the lumping together of himself with the “other”, the recognition that all of us are affected with the “other” does not change. That changing hearts will NOT happen until we understand.
This is not where the clip’s influence landed for me though.
Two days later, a couple days ago, I was in the bathtub, in warm water, spending some nurturing myself in a simple way that I love. Nothing fancy, just water.
But the tub was getting full, and I knew I had enough water, but I just wanted it a little hotter – so I let the water run.
And I thought to myself, how much this indulgence was my own contribution to misuse of the resources that we ALL share. How many baths can we all take when California’s reservoirs are empty, and the ice caps are melting.
Information I know in my head that I haven’t sorted into action yet. And that too I am aware of.
But I thought to myself, I will allow myself this time.
Inputs and outputs.
The stressors we allow in produce the need for remedy and relief on the back end.
It is not to say I should have a shorter bath. What I realized in that moment is another way of seeing, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
I thought to myself, that when we do things quickly, there is always an effect.
When we do something carelessly, a toll is paid.
When we build castles, the foundation laid must go deeper and wider. The destruction is great. I asked myself, what toll to meet the ego’s demands?
Are we considering these impacts, these side effects, as a part of score when we grade our results?
All the little deaths.
With my water rising in the bathtub, I remembered the story that is so precious, and maybe widely known, about the accommodations which were made in order to construct a movie theatre in the city of Kundun.
During the construction process, Harrer treats a worm like, well, a worm. The child reacts: “Never, never harm anything that lives.” Harrer laughingly expresses disbelief at being able to save all the worms,
Dalai Lama : ...You can not ask a devout people to disregard a precious teaching.
Heinrich Harrer : Yes but Your Holiness, with due respect, erm, we can't possibly
[laughs]
Heinrich Harrer : I'm sorry, but we can't possibly save all the worms! Not if you want a theater in this lifetime.
Dalai Lama : You have a clever mind. Think of a solution. And in the meantime you can explain to me, what is an elevator.
but the next scene shows the workers picking worms out of their sites and reverently carrying them to safety..
How many worms is it okay squash in order to bring a vision to life. In order to live a life?
I thought of it in relationship to my work, to my dreams, me, me, me.
We all are oriented this way. In the inner most recesses of our minds, eventually we meet and tame ourselves.
There is intention that only you know. That only you can be accountable for, and only to yourself.
Can you be just. And can also be gentle with yourself. Forgiving, but exacting too.
As much as if what were happening to someone else were happening to you.
When I think about the constructs that I see in the world, THIS is what I think about. Sometimes what I see in something grand, but not careful – is what was lost to achieve it.
Respect is something that is very difficult to scale. Love is boundless, but my personal realization, my truth in that tub, was that respect is a decision between two things, out of love.
It may never be possible to build a theatre in 6 months and kill 0 worms. Our choices on that spectrum are something that we all must live with individually. My point is to bring awareness to the shadow cast by what is big, what was quickly won, not-considered. As John Chester said, “It’s just at what point and how connected are you to the process, but that doesn’t excuse you from the reverence and the responsibility for life.” But as Rich said, …”the moment you start to think that you’re better than another human being or holier than thou or stand from a place of judgment is the minute that we lose that ability to have empathy. And empathy is what we need right now.”