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I Took a Plane to Die in Denver

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Mr. Joshua Shaw

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“Heaviness is uplifting. Heaviness is strengthening. Heaviness is sustainable. Not the gloomy kind of heaviness that characterizes a state of depression and hopelessness—which we must do our best not to fall into when listening to discouraging facts about climate changes and pollution—but the em- powering kind of heaviness that fills your life with substance, when you engage in meaningful projects”

“Yet it has to be recognized that these checklists conform to managerial norms of measuring sustainability because they are made up of easily quantifiable items: more solar roofs, less airborne particulates; more transit riders, less water use per capital; more housing density, less golf courses. Greening the world, from this standpoint, suggests that the ecological crisis can be fixed by making slight technical adjustments to people's habits and interactions with their daily environments. When sustainability is defined by a set of metrics, it reflects a purely physical understanding of how societies strive to be ecologically resilient. By contrast, there are no indexes for measuring environmental justice, no indicators for judging equity of access to the green life, and no technical quantum for assessing the social sustainability of a population. The vogue for green governance by the numbers is a recipe for managing, rather than correcting, inequality.”

“One could argue that time is the most valuable thing we have or “own.” We even seem to have a cultural and societal agreement on this, materializing in sayings like “time flies,” “life is short,” “our children are only on loan,” etc. It therefore seems odd that time is one of the “things” that we easily give away. We sell our time for money that we spend on new consumer goods instead of limiting our consumption in order to make it possible to sell less of our time. We engage in “ought to” events and arrangements that we don’t really want to attend in order to fit in. We waste our time on insignificant series and movies that are provided to us by endless streaming services in order to feel ready for another day of selling our time. This vicious circle is unsustainable.”

“I am not on a mission that involves preaching doomsday. Yes, there are definitely a lot of pollution-based problems in the world. And, yes, we most certainly need to change our consumption and production ways radically in order to stop ongoing climate change, inequality, and mindless consumption. But I think that one of the many reasons this “turning things around” is so hard is that the way we are being told to change things is lecture-based and fear driven.”

“Sustainable, simple living should be synonymous with resilience. There is nothing healthy, balanced, or resilient about the occasional “sugar-rush” in the shape of consumer-ventures or luxury holidays—which are needed in order to survive one’s stressful, busy daily life. I would even go as far as to rename the sustainable way of life—known as slow living or simple living—resilient living. The majority of the connotations currently linked to simple living are too lifeless and too monotonous to be inspiring and to contain longevity.”