This is the land that taught me: I am not an exception. I am nothing without earth, I am inextricably connected to earth, the health of the earth, the sky, the ocean is my responsibility. I’ve been thinking a lot about this responsibility—and about empathy, community, and exceptionalism. About living in this moment (era? millennia?) when the cult of exceptionalism isn’t just an interest or an ideal—for many, it’s a need upon which identity is predicated.
Our need for exceptionalism (to be singled out, to be special, to be extraordinary) is so great, so primal, that it obscures the possibility of empathy (if I’m better, then the other must be lesser—and their needs less important; if I’m better, then it doesn’t matter at what cost to the earth the resources I need may come), community (who needs togetherness if I’m better than everyone; who needs healthy soil when I can pretend my little bubble is all that matters), and any true evolution from a colonialist and white supremacist past. From a past that excuses atrocities and inequity based on exceptionalism, as the colonists who arrived here did when their diseases decimated 90% of the native Hawaiians population. That ravages the earth simply because it can.
This feels like a clotting point for growth—if we remain stuck in our need to be exceptional, we fail to see the bloodlines of human community stretching out around us. We don’t notice how those lines extend into the earth’s own biome.
On the other hand, if we are not exceptional (or if everyone is), if we see ourselves instead as a part of a(n exceptional) whole, then we cannot but hold ourselves accountable, within and without. We find ways, every day, to remember our inextricable connection to each other, to the earth. We know that we cannot heal without everyone. Without sky, soil, sea. We make new agreements with each other to take care. We make new choices—to reuse more, to consume less, to learn about the global supply chain, to honor trees, to address environmental racism, to learn Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “grammar of animacy”. We move forward. Together.
This is the land that taught me. What land teaches you?
