The Impossible Will Take a Little While

We are reading “The Impossible Will Take a Little While” in Environmental Studies, a collection of essays written by writers from all walks of life who write about facing feelings of powerlessness, and finding virtue and hope in humanity. A common theme in these stories is hope, something we need to keep burning strong in the environmental movement. These readings are a switch in the narratives we usually read in ENST that leave us feeling powerless. In Sherman Alexie’s essay “Do Not Go Gentle”, he finds compassion for others who have been masked by Mr. Grief as they too fear the loss of their children and this suddenly fuels Alexie to funnel hope and positive energy in light of a depressing circumstance. Transforming a sex toy into a magical healing wand, Alexie finds hope that his child will live through “chocolate thunder” and his child is brought back to health. Victoria Safford talks about solar ethics, meaning “to commit to living as the very sun itself lives, that is, to do what you were created to do, to shine and shine without regard for recognition or permanence or reward, to love and simply be for the sake of loving and living and being.” (p.225) from the “Small Work in the Great Work”. This is a beautiful analogy and reminder to just live as the sun lives. To live in harmony with all the people, critters, and plants on this planet we share. The concept of solar ethics resonates with me strongly. In the essay “Political Paralysis”, Danusha Veronica Goska writes about the illness she lives with, Perilymph fistula, and how it literally paralyzes her body. Some days she is physically paralyzed and cannot move, but on others she is moving and can do anything. She hears another woman at a spirituality and ecology conference express that she is powerless because she is only one person and what difference could she possibly make? Danusha responds that “the problem is not that we have so little power. The problem is that we don’t use the power that we have” (p.61). Danusha talks about acts of kindness she experienced in her life from people who “had no power”. To be virtuous is most often associated with celebrities or people who have received honor and recognition for doing good in the world. This can disempower others that they too can be virtuous everyday in their daily actions. But virtue is not about recognition. It is something to do and live out. The connection between virtue and solar ethics is to simply do what is right everyday without acknowledgement because that is our purpose in life. The sun does not require recognition and yet without the sun we would not be alive. To live as the sun lives...