I’ve given up much in this quest for growth and evolution.  I believe that life for Homo Sapien is summed up with the requirement constantly evolve, both mentally and spiritually.  Many people live their lives without giving any thought to this statement.  They are born, begin to consume and grow.  Get educated (programmed).  Get a job.  Consume.  Get married.  Consume.  Have kids, who consume and grow.  They continue to consume, and consume even more to prove they are “successful”.  And then they die… consuming in the process with their funeral and memorials with all the plastic cups and water bottles that are used in their ceremonies.  Sad, but true.

I never thought it would be easy to undertake the steps I chose to evolve and understand what it means to live a simpler, cleaner life, and incorporate “consumption ethics” into my life.  I knew that once I ventured down this rabbit hole, what would come out in the end might not resemble what went in.  I also know it would take sacrifice.  Sometimes a lot of it.

The thing that bothers me most on this journey, is when I look around at the so called leaders of the revolution, and observe their lack of honesty, integrity, and their unfortunate inability in actually really getting anything done for our future.  Take TreeHugger for example.  This web site is the resource for many environmental readers.  It’s articles do more than just educate readers on the “news” of the growing green movement, they give perspective.

But the lack of integrity shows itself when it comes to reporting on what really matters most.  The problem is that often what really matters and can change the world most, is the most powerful and threatening adversary.  Take the meat industry for example.  It saddens me that no one has the guts to put their necks on the line, and call out the meat industry on their unacceptable behavior causing damage to our planet… environmentally and ethically.  This is evidenced in numerous articles that talk about how bad factory farming is, but they never mention specific companies or link letters of protest for their readers.  Even when TreeHugger has a chance to take a strange act of protest (President of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk’s Will) and shed light on the purpose of this extreme act, thus using this as a platform to call out the meat industry and their obscene abuse of your planet and it’s earthlings; they mock the gesture and participate in the childish rhetoric that every other journalist used when the story hit.

TreeHugger is becoming a fraud.  You don’t believe me?  Check out this ad on their web site for Domino’s Pizza.

Now, you have to realize, the purpose of this essay is not to bash on TreeHugger alone.  I have linked to them, and referred to many of the excellent articles they have published many times in the past.  My issue is that as these sites, companies and movements get bigger and more “corporate”, they begin to lose focus and become machines that careen out of control.  This behavior is the seen when small companies go public.  Regardless of their original intent, the fact that every shareholder has their fingers in the “profit cookie jar”, the corporation is destined to drift to a less ethical, more profit driven philosophy.  Ethics costs money, and profits are about saving money.

I wrote an article a long time ago called “Let’s get a new microwave” (LINK) that talked about how large corporate business ultimately leads to using cheap labor off shore, which then leads to cheaper goods, which drives repair businesses out of business.  Oh, which then leads to junk in the land fills, and one more step towards the doom of your planet. Why?  Because you’d rather get a replacement that is cheaper, than make an ethical decision to spend more and repair your unit?  Yes.  It happens every day in America.

Growth based economy.  This is what is driving Homo Sapien to it’s resting place in history as “The responsible party for the end of an era on Earth”.  The ads in TreeHugger are there because TreeHugger uses advertising money (and I’m sure other sources) to support it’s site.  Now, I ask you readers, how many of you clicked on a side bar ad, on a blog to order pizza?  Right. Probably none of you.

The fact that TreeHugger even supports advertising is a contradiction to their mission.  You cannot create a sustainable future if you support advertising.  Advertising promotes consumption.  And we all know now that consumption is what is causing all of this.  One rock.  6 Billion Homo Sapiens.  Limited Resources.  And a growing appetite for STUFF.  Not a good equation.  Advertising fuels this fire.

The next knife I need to stick in TreeHuggers side is that by advertising Domino’s THEY ARE SUPPORTING factory farming, the dairy industry, the meat industry, GMO foods, Monsanto, and the continued laziness of Americans.  Not to mention the fattening up of already fat America, and the diseases that result as this unnatural version of Homo Sapien becomes the norm.

I wrote TreeHugger and asked if they would consider my articles for posting.  You know what they answered?  They are not accepting applications for writers at this time.  Now, last I checked… there were never any applications for any of the revolutions in the past?  Are they admitting that what needs to happen (the shift in human consciousness) is trivial and not revolutionary?  I write truth.  Maybe this is too revolutionary for TreeHugger to sell ads?  Most people get upset when they read it, but that doesn’t change the fact that you are consuming too much.  If you live in America, you consume too much.  Even if you are an environmentalist… your way of life IS NOT sustainable.  If you: drive a car, eat meat, buy clothes and replace them when fashion changes, watch TV, shop at a grocery store, or any one of hundreds of things that I see your every day “environmentalist” doing… you are part of the problem.  So am I.  But I acknowledge this and keeping trying my best EVERY day to change it.  I would hope you do to.

But it’s not your fault completely.  Your sources are flawed.  If you care, want to do good, read The Ultimate Spaceship and decide, “I’m gonna start reading TreeHugger and start to change my ways”; you will be presented with confirmation that eating Domino’s Pizza is good for your environment.  Now I’m not even going to begin with the one of 500 ways I can prove that to be wrong.

Stupid is, as stupid does.  I looked it up and found this interesting description of the phrase made popular by the well known character Forrest Gump.

Forrest Gump’s “Stupid is as stupid does” is a variant of an old adage, “Handsome is as handsome does.” This saying appears in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” and in Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd,” and can be traced as far back as the 14th Century.

“Handsome is as handsome does” basically means that true handsomeness has to do with a person’s behavior, not just a handsome face. The saying is also phrased in the forms “Pretty is as pretty does” and “Beauty is as beauty does.”

Forrest’s version of the saying means that stupidity is not just a surface thing derived from a person’s appearance. Stupidity is a matter of deeds, not looks. Like the other versions, it comes down to this: judge people by what they do, not by how they appear.

“HANDSOME (PRETTY) IS AS HANDSOME (PRETTY) DOES – Good deeds are more important than good looks. The proverb was first recorded by Chaucer in ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ (c. 1387). In 1766, in the preface to ‘The Vicar of Wakefield,’ Oliver Goldsmith wrote: ‘Handsome is that handsome does.’ First attested in the United States in ‘Journal of a Lady of Quality’ (1774). The saying is found in varying forms, including ‘Beauty is as beauty does’.” From the ‘Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings’ by Gregory Y. Titelman
(Random House, New York, 1996).”

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