Why I want to write

Instead of writing tonight I'm going to distract myself for 20 minutes on Netflix and then go to bed. I don't know what to write.

But I know why I want to write tonight.  

I want to write tonight to connect a bigger, necessary movement with your life. I want to piece words together in a way that leaves you impacted: moved by the scars our way of life leaves on us, our families' future, the rest of life on the planet; inspired to act to fulfill on a vision for a different kind of future. 

But I dont know what to say to cause that. If you were more poor, or if you were more directly impacted, like if you lived in the Niger delta, in southern Louisiana, downriver from the Alberta tar sands, in smog-filled Beijing, or downriver from open pit mines in West Virginia, it might not take as much effort. 

Here, where we are, our lives are less connected to the plight of our own and other species. At least on the surface. We are, of course, still deeply impacted, much more than we've been educated to acknowledge. 

We in middle class America can relate much more with Carl Sagan's pale blue dot than with poor brown people. The pale blue dot is where we hike, what we see from airplane seats, what we watch on Discovery. 

But it's also what we breathe, it's what we drink, it's what we eat, it's where we live. I'd rather all of us have clean air, clean water, and poison-free food than cheap air fares and high tech gadgets (and I love cheap tickets and Apple products). 

So I'm going to watch a show now and hope that inspiring, effective words come more easily tomorrow.