Children Ardent for Some Desperate Glory

“…children ardent for some desperate glory…”

—Wilfred Owen

“What is a course of history or philosophy, of poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen. Will you be a student, merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.”

—H.D. Thoreau, Walden

We realized this week that we, alone, or we, the school, will not stem the tide of global climate change. We know, even, that many of our actions were not “relevant” to the task and problem at hand. And yet, the things each of us chose to do are making each of us think and see, and that seeing might begin to take us out of the worn groove of our daily routines..

At school we had class with no lights, except sunlight, or, if it was dark, an oil lamp. We kept the heat down. We did not use the computers, printer, or microwave. Many walked to school or biked. We double-sided papers and used birch bark for homework.

At home many of the kids kept the lights down or did homework by candle-light. Many used no computers; almost all took short showers or no baths. Many did not listen to their Ipods or recorded music at all. Some played more games with their parents and siblings and spent more time “downstairs.” Some did not check email and found they had more time. Many took cold showers, ate cold food, used no shampoo, eschewed jewelry, make-up and ornament. Some ate only local food. Others ate no meat. One head teacher didn’t shave, wore the same clothes for five days, and heated up a can of lentil soup in the bread-oven, while his students heated left-over baked potatoes and calzone and turned their shirts inside out as a gesture of rebellion against rampant materialism.

Many of these gestures leaned toward the idea that we are all enmeshed in a system built around using things, going places, and living in a lot of comfort. Many discovered they can do with less luxury, though it is somewhat uncomfortable. It is easier to flip a light switch than light an oil lamp. It is more pleasant to take a hot shower. But we gained insights through deprivation: by wearing the same clothes all week and we discovered our clothes do not always need to be fluffy, immaculately laundered, static-free and smelling like an Irish Spring in order to be successfully functioning humans.

At school almost everybody wore “logo-free,” unbranded clothes. Or they turned logo-ed shirts inside out. They taped over brand-names with duct tape, a blow against brand-consciousness and conspicuous consumption, but a boon to the duct tape manufacturers. This brought up the idea that all of us are generally walking bill-boards for the very products we consume. Talk about tools of capitalism! And yet, we also realized that we have the standard of life we have due to capitalism, or, at least, an economy that is dynamic and flowing and creative, allowing us all to enter freely into the exchange of currency and goods, if we have currency or goods to contribute, allowing us multiple choices (of things to consume), and a relative amount of economic stability.

“It also makes me realize that there are plenty of people in the world, and the people of the past, who only had one set of clothes, that maybe don’t fit, and don’t get washed,” said one student.

“And Thoreau lived in a house with two chairs, a table, a bed, and a wood-stove,” said Sarah.

“I took a four minute shower but I was aware that I was using gallons per minute,” said another.

“I want to be less dependent on what my clothes say to define who I am,” someone said.

“I’m telling you, you guys look like walking billboards half the time,” said Tal.

“What about wearing a North Branch Logo?”

“That’s cool,” someone said.

“It’s all about what you believe, not that you shouldn’t support something,” said another.

Some of the kids wore no shoes as a visceral reminder, every step, of how much we do have—we all have at least ten pair of shoes, it seems, for different activities.Those who wore no shoes felt a different thing: having no shoes seemed to awaken an idea in those who did without them—a forceful reminder of the level of physical comfort we take for granted. They felt the cold or dampness of the earth, the dirt we live on but which we rarely touch, the extent to which we do not feel the environment of which we are a part.

Some tried to not look in mirrors for a whole week.

“What is the meaning of this? If someone says this has nothing to do with climate change what do you say?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are you trying to say to yourself?”

“That I am thinking about other things beside me.”

“You mean, that you are thinking about the villagers in Bangladesh whose land will be covered by rising sea levels or what?”

“Yes, or anything!”

“What’s wrong with looking at yourself in a mirror?”

“Because in some cultures, and once upon a time, there were no mirrors. We only use mirrors to see if we look good, or to see that we look bad, or to see that we need to look better.”

“So not looking in mirrors, not listening to music, not computer or interfacing on facebook, or not taking a hot shower—all of that does what?”

“It makes us think about what we have that others don’t.”

“It makes me realize that what I think I ‘need’ is not the same as what one ‘needs.’”

"It makes me think I should have deeper thoughts than only about appearances."

“It makes me think that one day we will not be able to have these things because it is not possible for the earth, based on the number of people on it, to all have these things forever?”

“I think what it is doing for me is making me more aware. Aware of what I use, what I need, what I don’t need.”

Claire came in with an article about the amount of acreage needed to raise meat. Hannah came in with an article about revolutionary thinkers, whose ideas turned over what we once believed to be true—for instance, the idea that once held sway that “Humans have no affect on the climate.”

Someone asked how much carbon we put into the atmosphere when we drove to our soccer game. Someone said, “I realize it’s so easy to switch on a light switch.”

“But really, it is not easy, or simple,” someone else said. “We just don’t see or realize how complicated it is.”

All week Sarah read from Walden, which is the subject of her upcoming Utopia project

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

We are learning that living simply, for us, is not so simple. All week we felt the enormity of changing the way we live. It was hard to be “simple" or Spartan-like. Finding the matches in the dark, making a fire in the bread-oven, writing by candle light—the difficulty lay in the conscious, deliberate alteration of ingrained life patterns built on dependence and complexity. Some suggested that we call it the Week of Living More Aware. We were aware of how much we use, how much we can do, how disconnected we are from the material sources of what we use, and how comfortable we are. In our physical and tactile experiences we found ourselves wading in new ideas thoughts and ruminations. Lighting the matches, lighting the lamps, having class in a quiet gloom, all of us looking a little more rag-tag and non-descript, eating cold food, with no computers distracting, all of us playing football or soccer or sitting on the Doug Walker rock, not drawn in by anything but movement in the field—seeing how far we could push ourselves and stay sane and happy, or at least what we call happy while depriving ourselves of “needs.” We were each testing ourselves to see how we live and what we live with, and how we can adapt, and whether, in truth, we can change. We did not do anything heroic last week; nothing glorious, or world changing. But, we are desperate to do something, and things we did may lead to us to see better what is before us as we walk on into futurity.