What Would Greta Say?

I’m illified and home from work.  Ronnie just left me to meet her brother.  I’ve been in a serious on-line hunt for reduced plastic hearing aid battery packaging.  Hopefully, it will keep me out of trouble.

It’s a challenge to reduce the extraneous plastic packaging in my life.  It is ubiquitous in our American world.  So much waste.  So much garbage.  If I find the better packaging on-line that has less waste, am I contributing more to environmental disaster by having it delivered to my home?  Probably.  What would Greta (Thunberg) say?  I guess that’s the modern mantra, “What would Greta say?”  Most likely, I am not prepared for the answer.

I’ve looked at dozens of hearing aid battery packaging options on Amazon.  I’m sure looking on Amazon alone is an environment disaster if not a cultural one.  I have not found the minimal plastic packaging I’m looking for.  Don’t they already know that I feel bad enough about using the damn hearing aid batteries?  

But, let’s talk hearing aids for a minute.  Using a hearing aid when our hearing is diminished improves engagement, fights depression, and is a deterrent to dementia.  Dementia causes untold personal, social, and health costs.  By this measure, using my hearing aids is a good thing.  Yet, I still feel privileged to be able to buy and supply them.  Where else can I make a dent in imminent environmental disaster?

I’m old enough that I’ll probably be dead before the really big, bad shit happens.  Like massive environmental extinction, food production failures, major disease outbreaks, water wars between cities and countries, and massive storms of varying types just to name a few.  But hopefully, my daughter will still be alive.  What kind of legacy is my generation leaving for her and her progeny?  Not a good one as far as I can see.

Personally, I’ve had a bad year related to unfortunate disasters of several types.  I’m trying to reduce my emotional and psychological state of over threshold.  It’s akin to dog training.  A dog can’t be trained when they are in a state of over threshold.  They have to be calmed down before they can focus on the desired behavior.  Right now, it’s looking like most of the world is over threshold with no de-escalation in sight.

For now, I’m going to move off the hearing aid battery packaging hunt and move to something else where I can make a difference.  In simplifying for today, I’ll look for other plastic packaging to eliminate.  I’m in illness recovery after all.  When Ronnie left, I promised not to do anything to increase my state of over threshold.  Since I am sick, I’ll have to keep the bar lowered.  On the other hand, maybe I’ll just go lay down.

What would Greta say?

L’Chaim.

Joceile

12.2.19

[In Hebrew, L’Chaim is a toast “To Life.”]