The rapidly compounding climatic crises of our times have shaken the world awake, ever since sinkholes started opening up sidewalk space and natural disasters have left millions with nothing in their wake. Growing choruses of concerned global citizens shout aloud that we must act now. The question is: what is the best way to act, and how? This is a document in five acts: the first provides a factual baseline for general readers on the muddled truths of our planet’s vital signs and how the powers that be are accelerating its demise. The second lays the groundwork for the reforms proposed in this report by building on successful legislation from last century’s industrial revolution at the dawn of our conservation movement. The third introduces the philosophical and technological building blocks necessary to make such sweeping changes happen today. The fourth lays the cornerstone for a new university-led initiative to bring overlapping resilience and mitigation solutions to our communities that can be adapted for international development while setting a new standard for education and entrepreneurship, based on student-inclusive sustainability service programs. The fifth and final act is a collection of creeping realizations and growing concerns that paved the way to this piece.

Act 1: Circling around the resources drain

“The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.” Theodore Roosevelt

How to act: Like we are on a tightrope and tight deadline

The planet’s emission budget

CO2 parts per million: The number to watch

Humankind forges its path ahead in zigzags, bouncing between conflicting notions of the goals we think most worthy and how to accomplish them in the most sensible way possible. However our understandings of money might differ,, there is one common currency that runs throughout the ages—one which we have squandered so resoundingly that, if I may overextend the metaphor, we are left with a measly handful before we find ourselves destitute and scrounging for scraps in the ruins of our own creation.

For the past 800,000 years, the world has existed comfortably at an equilibrium level of 180-300 ppm of CO2. However, the most recent 10,000 years of the holocene era gave us the predictable weather patterns and stability on which agriculture and industry are predicated—and which we now know to be the driving forces behind our two-fold increase in emissions that is now destabilizing our water and carbon cycles to the point of eliminating the soil and weather stability that we sought.

Our planet’s units are these PPM, and we have a margin of 10 remaining until we reach the greenhouse cliff. After this point, the weather change due to exponential growth in man-made emissions will lead to mass release of methane trapped in the Earth’s permafrost, resulting in a runaway chain reaction of greenhouse gas release that will make a transition back to sustainable and resilient systems infinitely more difficult, if not impossible. 1

At our current rate of carbon emissions—a moot metric, as they will continue to exponentially increase due to increased manmade emissions and the impending methane cliff—we have at most seven years to develop the technologies and strategies needed to ensure survival. Otherwise, these profound environmental changes will make large swaths of the planet uninhabitable and cause massive social and economic unrest making the adoption of sustainable systems far more challenging.

If we can reckon with this newfound understanding of the planet's condition, we cannot continue as individually concerned inhabitants rather than impactful brigades for positive change; if we do, the proverbial ball that we stand to drop will snowball to cataclysmic scale and roll over us all. In order to better manage our work with the planet’s carbon currency, humanity needs an ace atmospheric accountant.

The people’s economic blunders

Despite well-intentioned efforts to transition to green energy, the majority are myopic measures that will avail little benefit.

We've been collectively duped by the capitalist powerhouses and governments that have turned blind eyes to their transgressions. Rather than spend money building out their fallible fortresses of fossil fueled energy, why aren't they spending far less selling sustainable systems on single-use cases? Why are we being so irresponsible with our tight as ever carbon budget and haphazardly constructed currency system?

If there's any single conspiracy theory worth researching today, it's the one that has directly impacted us all our entire lives— this complacency we all have of paying for energy that is in fact all around us for free, but the dollars are not going that direction. What if, rather than succumbing to the financial contracts of energy bills, taxes we were instead beholden to a currency of power generating in the purest of senses?

The "carbon neutrality" and offsets by our most resource-rich corporations are actually milquetoast stopgaps from the very same big businesses that got us into this mess, and that we need to break the paradigm completely. The climate crisis needs to have a Nuremberg trial: holding the culprits directly and personally responsible for the damage that they have wrought paired with efforts that assume the worst and prepare locally and accordingly.

Act 2: Squaring the circle in a round world

“The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future.”

- Theodore Roosevelt

How to act: As level-headed futurists and history enthusiasts

A Square Deal for every man

In order to make sense of environmental politics, we must understand the historical context in order to update it for the challenges of our times. The zeitgeist has spoken- and it says let's talk about Teddy. A book review and interview came out last week "In a new book, David Gessner follows Roosevelt’s trail through camping in the South Dakota Badlands, Arizona’s Grand Canyon and California’s Yosemite. "Leave It As It Is: A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt's American Wilderness" traces Roosevelt's crusading environmental legacy and deconstructs the positive and negative aspects of his environmental leadership."In this upcoming upgrade to his presidential library, I also want to explore the texts he loved and the ones he would have loved, had it not been for his bias.

“What Roosevelt did back then was prescient,” he says. “And we need to have that same kind of vision now.”

I think Teddy would have preferred the title "Leave it better than it is".

These days, Teddy would have a new deal. He would also be a techie and a champion of changing the game with an upgrade to his square deal. He would, with our common knowledge now that life cycles in a circle, make a well-shaped deal that goes in a circle. He would see the shape of our planet and outline a plan we need that makes our economy, environment, education and everyday life great. He would, with our common knowledge now that life cycles in a circle, make a well-shaped new green deal that goes in a circle. And that is through the open-source bio-economy.

What we as a nation must do, if we respect our heritage and our future as a society is rally behind the ideals rough rider Roosevelt cried forever more carved into Mount Rushmore.

If he were to see what we face today, maybe he would say not "speak softly and carry a big stick". Maybe he would say the exact opposite- "speak loudly and carry a microfluidic chip". We need voices so loud that it drowns out all the falsehoods we find ourselves flailing in. It’s not unlike Teddy to say today something along the lines of “This past century is a disgrace beyond belief. It boggles my mind that with the technology mankind has today, the ability to transfer knowledge and build tools beyond our necessity, we nevertheless struggle to do more.”

A Circle Deal for every organism

Given what we know now, the terms for such sweeping reforms must be inclusive of all life on earth and formulate a plan for every organism’s survival and revival against devastation by the worst financial and commercial powers whose unforgivable death-dealing practices are the tragedy of the twenty-first century.

A circle deal for every student, staff, faculty and community member is essential if we are to live up to the ideals outlined by the founders of our pioneering university.

Here we describe what a circular system would look like both in terms of first steps and its highest point of influence.

We have founded our educational, environmental and economic systems on principles that no longer apply when urgent change is needed if we are to be prepared. To align our university’s founding principles with the most sensible actions, we need a consensus and concerted effort.

A circle deal is a sweeping set of high-stakes sustainability reforms with a low barrier of entry, inspired by Teddy Roosevelt's square deal. More reflective of the shape of the world today, a circle deal brings together the generally recognized influential components. When I say I am for a circle deal I mean not merely that I stand for closing the loop for a circular economy, but that I stand for opening up collaborative opportunities to pick up the pace for a circular economy. The condition of circle dealership is that we shall do the work needed to safeguard our communities and innovation efforts. A community is not secure unless it has the means to manufacture essential goods and give us the energy we consistently need.

There are six points to the circle deal with conditions for each:

Carbon-centric: Have our six-sided building block of life, carbon, be at the center of our new systems.
1. All contraptions must include carbon-capture, be it simply a coating or moss bed.
Cross-disciplinary: Incorporate the disparate areas of study to make new carbon cycles and clean technology for our planet by collaborating.
1. Bridge the gap between theory and practice
Closed-loop: Making everything we do go in full circle for a waste-less existence.
1. On-campus upcycling initiatives, beginning with no.6 plastic for fuel cells.
Computer-assisted: We use our must advanced technology to its full potential so we can eliminate human error and maximize insights.
Community-based: The terms of a circle deal may vary. This is why each cohort of circle deal players must cooperate in order to stack the deck in our collective favor.
Courses-of-action: Always having a concrete message for what our findings convey and how to make all this results in capital gain paired with courses across campuses propelling further action that will make us exclaim “but of course!”

If it were possible to get everyone on the same page about the sensible thing to do in the midst of our bingo card of catastrophes, this deal lays out the clearest shapes and patterns that, with a well-rounded effort, we can align our carbon emission capture mission to stack the cards in our favor. If such six-pointed circles were formed right, a fast-moving trend towards right-living and right-learning and right-creating that can turn carbon-negative with positive results for all parties to adopt the sensible, easy way to transition into the shape the planet is achievable.

Act 3: Theoretically and technically talking in circles

How to act: Holistically with haste

Philosophy: Use wisely

What point has there been that humankind has been eager to change, clamoring to do better? It’s when radical transformations take place in the face of great risks and there is no other choice but to change. The moments we do clamor for change come once in a century or so, and our university is well-prepared to be at the center of it.

Even with our crystal balls built by crystalline structures and supercomputing power, there are things we cannot predict, which is why a precautionary principle is essential, and we must constantly be working on making the most multifaceted solutions with the least amount of space, waste, and time.

One of the testaments of time is that we need to be looking at it on all sides, and wasting no time in adapting to the future that faces us all.

Technology: Mimic biology

“If we were better students of Nature and maintained with her a closer comradeship, the civilization of today would lose much of its sordid spirit and its pronounced selfish aims.”

-Eliza A. Otis, Our Strenuous Life

The technology we decide to create and ways we interact with it are directly shaped by our philosophy. The haste to make carbon-neutral energy sources, carbon capture measures, and food security strategies are destined to be half-measures that cannot stack up in the face of the future.

Despite the benefits of many sources of renewable energy being used, they are often costly and situation-dependent. But there is a proven technology that has proven benefits at scale. The problem is the time to industrial commercialization from the research, design, and pilot phase is too long. Compared to traditional treatment-focused, energy-intensive environmental technologies, this emerging technology offers a new and transformative solution for integrated waste treatment and energy and resource recovery. MESs are an umbrella term that encompasses different types of technologies that incorporate microorganisms abilities to broker deals between chemistry and electricity and use them for vital applications.

MESs offer unprecedented opportunities for sustainable energy production in addition to and many other benefits

In order to understand and develop upon how we can address our pressing needs for survival by turning to the world’s primordial life forms, impervious to threat microorganisms and the forces which govern pretty much our entire known universe, which can be generalized as energy.

Think of it as a sustainable Swiss army knife outfitted with a set of methods which utilize microorganisms to produce energy, treat waste, and other vital processes needed for a sustainable society.

The specialized scientific sentiment is that MESs (Microbial Electrochemical Systems) can make matters better beyond measure. Because it’s just messing with different microbes and materials to make science magic happen. The problem is that those who know about MESs are not getting the message out to the masses. We need to bridge the gap between students, scientists, and power players to make MESs where it can help enhance current infrastructure and products while educating the general public and introducing this all-natural, state-of-the-art method of merging finely tuned microbes and meta materials to make mixtures that serve as the closest thing to a panacea. The cause of this problem is that we lack a centralized information system and easy pathways to adoption for MESs. The world of MESs is like the Wild West— it’s exciting, a part of the booming biotech industry that is continuing its stratospheric ascent, an uncultivated market ripe for saturation.

The rise of interest in the field of organic energy and computing has resulted in widespread realization that a key component to achieving sustainability is shifting our industrial efforts into biomimicry with our strongest, smallest allies on the planet.

While we’ve been busy industrializing the planet to the point that it cannot adapt to our levels of waste production and environmental destruction, there’s been an omnipresent civilization of cellular organisms that has glided through all four previous extinct level events with relative ease.

It’s only been the past two decades that we’ve employed their expertise to address the challenges of producing chemicals, treating waste, generating and storing electricity, the essential functions that make daily life possible.

They can treat waste, make medical products, generate electricity, capture carbon, extract heavy metals, filter air, produce hydrogen, and so much more. They can be as small as we can envision, as big as we can build, and ultimately power anything. The variety of materials that can be used are low-cost and easily accessible.

Experts praise these fascinating systems as the ultimate answer to our sustainability problems

MESs can run circles around all other clean technologies and still have energy to run the world.

Waste can be a wonderful thing if used wisely.

Despite the opportunities technology now affords us, at minimal cost and maximum benefits, we are still living in a high-waste world. If we are to continue at our exponential rate of destruction without adopting the exponential advancements, we are in for an arduous future.

The stakes are getting higher every day. All the while, we are operating in a business-as-usual way, albeit with the newfound knowledge that there’s a simple strategy to achieve community-specific sustainability, and that is with a circular economy.

Our strongest allies in this effort are a combination of algae, moss, and other multi-talented organisms with the survival intelligence that is alien to us humans. We can no longer default to technogenic exceptionalism; instead, we must embrace biological collaborators that counteract our innate cognitive failings.

The breadth of algae's benefits in economic, environmental, and educational realms would be covered— its superior ability to capture 400% more CO2 than an acre of 25-year-old trees within a chamber that can fit on your desk, and do it immediately. That the algal biofuel financial issue exists but is easily overcome by combining their CO2 capture powers with their electrogenic abilities to create renewable energy. The fact that algae can be used for a slew of biomaterials that degrade (or not!), are conductive (or not!), are flexible (or not!), transparent (or not!), magnetic (or not!) makes it a clear choice. That algae is actually the best bet for decentralized agriculture, and serves as a stellar growing medium for long droughts and dark days, growing regardless of water and sunlight. That algae, when combined in cell growth matrixes, overcomes early cell death for generating artificial organs with biomedical and environmentally-friendly meat product applications. That algae, when ingested as two capsules a day, gives more nutrients than a pint of blueberries and a carton of spinach, it reduces diabetic blood-sugar levels significantly, and serves as feed for livestock. That algae, when treated with respect and providing it the proper environment and assets, can also extract precious metals, microplastics, and pollutants from waterways and exhaust fumes. And it will do it all for the low low price of us just paying attention to it. That good, old algae, it is everywhere; it was the first to come; the last to leave.

And so we follow the direction of scientists and students and Google searches, which will make sense of MESs so we can bring it to the masses, where they can compliment, retrofit , redesign products so they combine the best.

We cannot resort to last-ditch efforts at planetary transformation as our latter-day valve-happy over-engineered era is wont to do— especially when we do not and cannot know the lasting impacts. We must instead take our cues from the living world which existed long before us, catalyzing a bio-industrial revolution of putting microbes in the captain’s chair and giving them free reign to guide Spaceship Earth to safety.

Act 4: Where to circle the wagons

How to act: All together now—big chorus number!

Change starts with C...UNY

“If we are the engine of social mobility that we say we are….we have to internalize the idea that the social mission we embody as an institution is a path to prosperity and stability but not there yet.”

-President Boudereu

CUNY buildings produce roughly 14% of NYC’s building emissions (about 34,000 metric tons of CO2). Our generation has an obligation to halt and reverse this trend of growth, and to do so more affordably than through facility upgrades and more comprehensively than through carbon capture.

It’s imperative that we usher forth interdisciplinary projects focused on both the biotechnology innovations and general education efforts necessary to build resilient systems and teach the public at large the state-of-the-art strategies necessary to mitigate disasters.

Research universities now have an obligation to use their resources to achieve local resilience and climatize their campuses. We have the opportunity to model a problem-solving framework and a sustainable economy for our city, providing a blueprint for other institutions and communities to do the same.

Based on the outreach and interdisciplinary research objectives outlined in the ASRC's 2024 plan, we see a promising opportunity for the ASRC, the sustainability graduate program, Sustainable CUNY and community sustainability initiatives to combine forces and achieve more.

With the many infrastructural vulnerabilities that we have, it is imperative that we galvanize quickly and with the wisest possible use of our time, capital, and energy. We must begin by building a united front of organizations working towards the same goal.

CUNY extolls academic excellence and the accessibility of its benefits, regardless of community members’ individual privilege. We have adequate opportunity and urgency for us all to play a part in protecting us from thwarted progress and futile efforts.

If we stand any chance as a planet in succeeding at sustainable development, we must combine the best rigorous scientific evidence of today with the timeless values our heroes and founders espoused.

We need our two worlds—the industrial and the natural—to become more like each other. In focusing on maximizing comfort and cutting costs, we lost sight of the enormous bill that we as a species racked up for which we do in fact have the resources to pay the planet back. This currency, while not too hard to come by, does require that we make some exchanges for sweeping changes.

Now that both our buildings and biological bodies are beginning to break down; now that the accumulated mass of proof of the harm we've caused and the scientific breakthroughs we've reached are both too numerous to deny—now any sustainability initiative is wholly incomplete without an interconnected, extensively researched and biologically sound action plan of unprecedented measure.

Objectives:

Serve the planet and protect our institution
Build scalable, proof-of-concept technology to make our buildings carbon-capturing and self-sustaining
Identify and implement the most cost-effective of these systems to make the best of our shrinking budget
Infuse sustainable education into all our course material and make it available to everyone
Contribute to a central source of knowledge and collaboration opportunities for our communities
Pair projects with a parallel early education curriculum
Address the unprecedented challenges with a university-wide concerted effort
Fulfill the implementation plan set forth by the Advanced Science Research Center
Reevaluate planned renovations to be carbon-negative and energy-generating.
Incorporate sustainable initiatives and research-based education into relevant programs

Tactics:

Align ASRC, Sustainability department, Sustainable CUNY, and greater CUNY/SUNY sustainability initiatives such as College of Staten Island’s Sustainability club and have more students involved across departments
Create a cross-campus circle deal
Partner with international institutions (currently working with Del Rosario in Columbia
Make open-source database of capstone projects and identify local community partners and private sector collaborators to be a part of a circle deal
Have CUNY-wide circular economy crash course that introduces vital information for our everyday lives
Introduce students and staff to best research and design tools (Mendely, Notion, Miro, Google slides, Ankii)
Pair our projects with public awareness metrics, including social media sharing and journalist rolodex to get our research out beyond siloed research publications
Green chemistry: transition our lab techniques to be eco-friendly with a comprehensive set of protocols that not only backstep our carbon footprint, but propel our research forward. An example of this would be widespread use of microfluidic chips with upcycled materials and carbon-capturing composites that enhance a variety of experiments in disparate fields.
Carbon-capturing campuses: As of 2006, CUNY buildings account for 10% of New York City’s buildings CO2 emissions. That means that we have an obligation to pay back the planet the havoc we’ve wrecked upon it by converting our campus to be carbon-negative and cost less than current construction plans and future-proof us in the process.
Work with synergistic nonprofits to introduce the core principles of our planet’s needs and actions we can all take
Partner with agencies and creatives on communication design to bring our educational efforts to different audiences
Establish a circle deal center that brings it all together as a constellation of climate catastrophe conscious communities.

The tandem phases (subject to many changes) would be:

Greenlight first round of our MESs pilot projects
Setup a centralized CUNY Sustainability collaboration base that connects our campuses various initiatives, fixing broken links and fostering communication through a slack channel.
Incentivize participation with projects culminating in publications and credits
Offer sustainability capstone collaboration to complimentary departments, undergraduate to post-doc
Coordinate with local universities to pool resources into efforts to build solutions to fulfill Climate Mobilization Act requirements
Foster entrepreneurship by making CUNY startup resources and mentors available to greater community

Cast of Characters

Roles:

Students:

Scientists

Administrators

Activists

Philanthropists

Officials

Executives

Individuals

Influencers

Phase One: Validation

Researched the best practices on what our priorities should be in order to make in terms of products and services and what frameworks to follow in order to fulfill our most important goals.

Phase Two: Structure

Model out a clear participation pathway on how to best provide sustainable solutions and create an actionable starting point. A score for action!

We rode the wave of favorable environmental conditions so much that we torpedoed the planet.

Professional boroughs of fear. They don’t understand the language of existential threats.

Change stays with circular economies

The circle deal exposes our many shortcomings as a learning community while spotlighting feasible and actionable measures to improve the innovation and employment development pathways for students, staff and faculty. This will help us make sizable impacts on pressing societal problems, and live up to the vision our founders had for this pioneering institution.

Sustainability isn’t being taught primarily because educators believe it doesn’t relate to their subject. This is a concept that impacts all of us, as critical a lesson as any the history of humankind has been forced to learn due to the direction we forced nature to take. This deal represents a thorough review of decade-spanning transdisciplinary research, public benefits, financial situations, proven pilot projects in a historical context that amounts to a systematic overview of what is needed to address our most pressing tasks: ensure that we all operate on a certain set of facts and conduct ourselves in such a way that works towards establishing sustainable communities in spite of the ever-growing problems that lie ahead.

What this plan will entail is certainly a minefield of mishaps, as we have already witnessed. In addition to our efforts amounting to immediate mobilization of all our resources to reform environmental policy and renewable energy, it is imperative not only to engage and enlist the next generation to join this service with us.

This goes beyond environmental education in time of existential crisis, vital information sharing for dire times-- it’s an invitation to take the initiative of a defense production act-like stance and do it for our direct and immediate betterment

The lack of instantaneous and intense use of the wisest of ways will result in an unprecedented sense of regret on a scale that transcends circumstances we never thought possible.

For those of us who believe we should be doing things differently, it is our duty to contribute constructively.

I do not care how noble the effort or popular the process, if our production does not align with the two primary requisites of resilience and renewability, the intentions are futile. But resilience isn't futile. The noblest of efforts is one based on the most vital knowledge and having the wisdom to do it justice by promoting and practicing it.

I do not care how heady our research is in the academic sense, if it does not directly benefit our communities with a direct relation to our sustainable development goals, its existence is a part of the problem— we are wasting our intellectual capital and institutional resources on siloed, solipsistic endeavors, which have inarguable value for societal progression, but now is a time to galvanize in a way the world has yet to experience.

The course of action we cannot afford to pass over is of course one of hard work and conflicting contingency plans, but it is the only way. It is acting as if our risk is rising and resources are reducing at a rate that will put us square in the face of harm’s way.

Act 5: Circling back to the past

We are at a precipice of a planetary paradigm-shift that requires a parallel shift of the public will, shaped by successful past paradigm-shifts and how we can apply them to our needs today. If we are to proceed for public betterment in the sanest way, it would be to close the carbon loop with a circle deal.

Despite the roadblocks our bureaucracy implements, we can eschew them by going straight into the hands of the planet’s most fervent advocates- our students, scientists, socially-conscious leaders and activists.

Good things will come, even out of the present evils, if we face them armed with tried and true tactics and state-of-the-art innovations; showing that we are hot to trot, cool in the head, and warm in the heart.

Somewhere between sophisticated and citizen science is where I see true sustainability- a bottleneck free society, decentralized, streamlined, sometimes wrongheaded but nevertheless heading in the right direction, and that’s putting the right tools in all our hands, decked out with devices, using as few gloves in the process.

The 12 Steps

The parallels between addiction to substances on an individual level has a strong similarity to the sustainability issues we face. The carbon-neutral goal of 2050, 2040, even 2030 is akin to an alcoholic saying “I am committed to drinking equal amounts of water and whiskey at some point in the next few years”. By tacitly accepting our largest global emitters

Here are the 12 steps of sustainability:

We admitted we were powerless over climate politics—that our systems had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that power greater than ourselves could restore us to livability.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the shift to circular economies as evidenced by science.
Made a searching and frequent wise use of resources inventory.
Admitted to Mother Nature, to ourselves, and to the next generation the exact nature of our wrongs.
We were entirely ready to have a holistic outlook and remove all these defects of technology and philosophy.
Humbly asked the powers that be and greater communities to cooperatively close the carbon loop.
Made a list of all products and processes that do harm, and became willing to sever ties with them.
Made direct collaboration with the next generation wherever possible, except when to do so would confuse them or others.
Continued to take progress inventory and when we were wayward promptly corrected it.
Sought through research, experimentation to improve our conscious contact with the carbon cycle, as we understood it, praying only for knowledge that will galvanize us and have the power to carry that out.
Having had a sustainable awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to the masses, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

The serenity prayer asks our Higher Power to “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

The Strenuous Life

These are the first three paragraphs of Theodore Roosevelet’s “The Strenuous Life” speech, updated for the times.

[1] In speaking to you, men of the greatest city of the West, men of the State which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, men who pre-eminently and distinctly embody all that is most American in the American character, I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.

To which I say:

In writing to you, fellow dwellers of the greatest life giving planet we know of, dwellers of a veritable globe which gave us the gifts of nature's resources such as graphene and algae-- phenomena to exploit in our image, dwellers who are concerned by the planet and committed to positive contributions, I wish to share not a screed chronicling our faults as a destructive, domineering species, but a usable blueprint for our strenuous life, our life of unrest and uncertainty, of underemployment and endless entertainment; to share that essential function of knowledge and wisdom which comes, not to the biased human who disagrees with reality, but those who do not recoil from catastrophe, challenges, or thankless service, and who out of these wish to engage in making our planet last wins first place for embracing and acting upon ultimate truths in the quest for public betterment.

[2] A life of ignoble ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. I ask only that what every self-respecting American demands from himself and from his sons shall be demanded of the American nation as a whole. Who among you would teach your boys that ease, that peace, is to be the first consideration in their eyes-to be the ultimate goal after which they strive? You men of Chicago have made this city great, you men of Illinois have done your share, and more than your share, in making America great, because you neither preach nor practice such a doctrine. You work yourselves, and you bring up your sons to work. If you are rich and are worth your salt, you will teach your sons that though they may have leisure, it is not to be spent in idleness; for wisely used leisure merely means that those who possess it, being free from the necessity of working for their livelihood, are all the more bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in exploration, in historical research-work of the type we most need in this country, the successful carrying out of which reflects most honor upon the nation.

To which I say:

A life of half measures, a life of missed opportunities which falls mainly from absence either of awareness or ability to act in better ways, is as inexcusable for a society as of a single person. I ask only that what every self-proclaimed societally conscious person hopes for from themselves and from their community shall be adopted by our planet as a whole. Who among you would tell the general population and political forces that delayed action and dishonesty is to be the best practice— to be the ideal form of leadership and influence? You people of the internet have made this world change, you people of the internet have done your research, and more than your research, in making the world great, because you either share your reality and/or search for solutions to make life more comfortable and fulfilling. You worry yourselves, and you bring up subjects of worry. If you are internet-connected and are worth your salt, you learned that though we must have worry-free time to unwind, it is not to be spent listlessly; for wisely used worry-free time just means that those who have it, being free from extreme emotional toil and urgent tasks, are all the more able to make a positive impact on our lives, our communities, our governments, institutions and influential private entities—- contributions of the kind we most need currently, the modest attempt of which includes the most virtuous human inclination of righting wrongs and spearheading truths.

[3] We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life. It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save by effort. Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been stored up effort in the past. A man can be freed from the necessity of work only by the fact that he or his fathers before him have worked to good purpose. If the freedom thus purchased is used aright, and the man still does actual work, though of a different kind, whether as a writer or a General, whether in the field of politics or in the field of exploration and adventure, he shows he deserves his good fortune. But if he treats this period of freedom from the need of actual labor as a period not of preparation, but of mere enjoyment, he shows that he is simply a cumberer of the earth’s surface, and he surely unfits himself to hold his own with his fellows if the need to do so should again arise. A mere life of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious work in the world.

To which I say:

We do not applaud the human of inactive ambitions. We support the human who embraces necessary change, the human who rarely misleads their followers, who is prompt to admit they're wrong, but who has those plucky quirks vital to shift the paradigm of everyday life. It is hard to win overall, but it is made better by any level of trial and error. In our lives we get nothing by way of free passes. Present-day free passes would mean that systems for stable societies have been made in the past. A human can be freed from the obligation of conscious contributions only by being unconscious. If our opportunity enjoyed is used wisely, and we still do honest inventories, though of a confession-swearing-in kind, whether as a young, privilege-deprived mind or a venerated enterprise, whether in the field of politics, science, physical labor or artistic endeavors, we show that we embrace fact-based decisions. But if we treat this period of opportunity with impunity as a period not of paradigm-shifting possibilities, but as one of predetermined occurrences, we show that we are nothing more than a freeloading scrounges scouring the earth's surface, and we surely disqualify ourselves as thoughtful, resourceful people who can sustain and protect themselves when emergency situations arise. An unmoored life of pleasure cruising is in the end not a very worthwhile life, and, overall, it is a life unmeant for those who aspire to be of use in the world.

Sam FronsApril 20, 2021Comment