No offense, but if you smoke, drink beer or guzzle soda, you are exponentially more likely to litter.
How have I proven this bold hypothesis?
A three-mile jog this morning along some beautiful countryside provided a revealing, up-close perspective of what lies along the side of the road besides grass. To my dismay, every couple of feet there were beer cans and bottles. Cans and plastic bottles of soda—especially of the “diet” kind. And cig butts strewn about here and there. I saw a few other types of litter, but these three categories by far dominated the others.
I find littering to be an especially egregious mix of apathy and arrogance toward the ecosystem that ultimately unites us all. It is a blatant, ignorant thumb-of-the-nose at the sanctity of all living things, crudely symbolic of the dualistic undercurrent that infects so many worldviews. It’s painfully ironic that some of the same people who are furious at BP’s over-the-top pollution of the Gulf are probably failing to think twice about the everyday tossing of a can or a bag of trash out of their car window. It’s not hurting anybody, after all.
Whoever you are, please stop littering. The trash doesn’t magically appear alongside the road by itself, after all.
Consider stewardship of the earth that we share to be a wider reflection of the stewardship you apply toward yourself. If you are drinking enough beer to not think twice about tossing a can or beer onto the ground, you’re probably not being a good steward of your health. If you’re drinking soda—yes, even the diet kind!—to any large extent, you’re missing the bigger picture of your own health as well. And if you smoke cigarettes…well, you see where I’m going here.
Be certain of this: I do not consider you a bad or lesser person if you use any of these products. But the behavior of at least some of you adversely affects the rest of us. So it’s my business, too. And everyone else’s. Just cut it out. Thanks!
