Achieving Through Cooperating: The Fight for a Pristine World (Angel Chang)

We today, as human beings, consider it simply natural to exist within the realm of excessive consumerism, spurred by excessive wants and artificial needs. But we are in fact entrapped in societal restrictions, bound by societal norms, that all affect the mind, the ego, rather than the being. That is why we need to merge with our beings, and extract the sense of personal responsibility and a higher want to change, to act upon our current problems, especially those pertaining to the environment. Most importantly, we need to cooperate, connect with others, and learn with our consciousness, the duty of working towards the better good for all.

We cannot breathe – in this constant, never-ending cycle of consumption and waste, we are trapped in the mind, together with our ego minds, and follow blindly according to the societal norms that are set out, simply, for us to follow. We do not have a sense of our own minds, or a sense of inner peace, it seems, for we do not know what we want, but are instead influenced by things such as propaganda and advertisements. As helpless beings that are put into constant danger zones of frivolous spending and waste, we do not know, internally, what to do – the world is laughing at us. We shrink deeper and deeper to our doom, with our minds, while our environment deteriorates gradually. What must we do to break free from the penetration of this frightening cycle?

To search deeply within oneself is to find all elements of the self that merge to form the sense of personal responsibility, which then consequently leads to the solutions to personal happiness. I think it is absolutely crucial that we move out of our modes of the “mean green meme,” and thus seek to define what it is that we ultimately need to escape from the realm of harshness. It is not escaping from reality or substance but, rather, it is forming a new dimension of acting, thinking, and pursuing. It all comes, ultimately, from searching within oneself, for answers, for solutions, and for the need to fully cooperate with others to complete the duty of maintaining peace and good for the outer environment.

What are the needs of the environment, of the society? The society in which we live is manipulated and molded by us – the society does not manipulate us. Our home’s condition is a complete result of our actions, decisions, and choices. As Al Gore mentioned, we NEED TO WORK TOGETHER. WE HAVE A PURPOSE. And for this purpose, we will RISE, AND WE WILL ACT. To act according to the senses of the being, and to make decisions spurred by the inner thoughts of responsibility, is the key to defining the wants and needs of the environment. Equality must be established, but it is an equality FOR THE ENVIRONMENT that we must seek to accomplish. We can start by cooperating with each other, coming up with solutions to rid the society/environment of its impure evils, but in peaceful, serene, and much more “aware” terms.

In conclusion, we must learn to live with the being, the sense of awareness and purpose, and not with the mind, the element of ourselves that manipulates our actions. We are blind today, and therefore must seek to see tomorrow. We must love ourselves, seek to define ourselves in terms of what we want, what will really satisfy us, and this will lead to the capability to rid our society of impurities. We have to work together, move away from closing in, and control our egos – like this, we will have the chance of having a better future.