Freedom is not entitlement
It is consciousness that honours the environment that is shared.
Freedom is neither earned nor granted. It is something that is cultivated through presence and awareness. When one becomes sensitive enough to be aware within and also comes present to one's surroundings, one then becomes able to exercise freedom with responsibility. Until then, the freedom that is leveraged often has a cost associated to it. And it may appear that one is getting away without having to pay for what it costs to leverage that freedom while someone else pays for it – whether monetarily or otherwise, we must not forget that life is a synthesis of cycles and circles; and cosmos may be vast and infinite but is interconnected. Everyone gets caught at some point – sooner or later; no one ever gets away from paying their share. So why wait for the interest to be compounded on us to be paid later, and not make a deposit on the go with right actions every step of the way? – be it responding to Mother Earth the way she expects from us, by not wasting the precious resources that we receive from her, while returning all that must be for renewal and recycling; or by not adding harmful compounds into the air that is not only ours to breathe; as well as practicing our worldly responsibilities ethically – by not narrowing our horizons too lean that the vision of an open sky disappears from our sight from in between the sky scrapers that we've been surrecting to mount the ladder that we call "development" and "success".
Our small steps set forth consciously in the right direction every day, are the ones that carry the invisible momentum of change that we would like to see in our world. This potential doesn't lie in big movements marched by thousands together on a single day holding slogans and reminders of right actions – for all to be forgotten the next day – returning to status quo in our individual lives and giving in to the bureaucratic rigidity in our system. Coming together to educate each other and the larger world is indeed helpful, but how does it serve its purpose when right actions are only left written on paper and are gotten over with, without the intention and grit to follow through and implement in everyday life?
Every being on the planet holds the key to preserving it, and equally holds the key to destroying it. Which door are you opening more often – is the question for you to contemplate. Nature handed us the responsibility of these keys through our birth. As long as we are present on the planet, we carry this responsibility. It doesn't need titles and designations for one to act responsibly. Our birth on earth alone adorned us with this responsibility. Because being here, we are bound to borrow the resources from our atmosphere to survive, else we can't be here. While being here, we can't not use the air or drink the water or eat any food. And with that alone, we become responsible to return – to do our part in preserving these resources and others – to keep the air clean for others to breathe, to not waste water food, and share the surplus.
If you are convinced that you are doing everything right, you may want to review your actions through the entire length of your day, for once, at least for one day – and notice how long did you let your car engine idle before you finally took off each time you ignited it; to what all places you could rather go without even using your car – either by foot, or by bicycle, public transit or shared transport; how many cigarettes did you burn today if you did and how much of the harmful substances it might have carried into the lungs of others who had to forcibly breathe that air rendered polluted by you; what all things you availed today that you could do without or could do with less of them; and did you ensure to return all that should have been – to the places meant for them – be it used plastic or organic waste; and did you think of reusing, fixing or remodeling before discarding.
In a world where developing nations are optimizing the use of their limited resources, developed nations with their excesses, seem to be taking leeway in exercising liberty that leans towards irresponsibly utilizing an environment that is shared. Our territories that we drew on paper may have boundaries guarded by soldiers on ground, but the air flows freely as swayed by the winds, and the rivers follow their natural route – uninterrupted and unbound by human interventions. The smoke from wildfires burning in one province of a country does cross borders – not only that of provinces and countries but also of continents, crossing oceans, reaching halfway across the globe in different direction as swayed by nature – affecting the air quality of lands far off the origin of fires. And the pollution in Beijing or Delhi may seem like the problems restricted within the boundaries of the city, but cleaner air outside of those cities – near or far – help stabilize the air quality within these cities too – which means doing our part consciously and ethically wherever we may be, supports the environment globally.
Many of the developed countries, with their highly sophisticated artificial infrastructure, and despite their regulated laws on emissions, industrial releases, vehicle standards, and wildfire management, and even with their robust air-monitoring systems, happen to be some of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases per capita – be it from leisure wood-burning, vehicle engines idling, smoking away of weed, cigarettes, and other substances uncontrollably, or gas-fueled leaf-blowers being blown for hours when a broom, instead, can quietly do the job more effectively, economically, and ecologically.
Despite this spendthrift culture that adds to air pollution, the environment in majority of these countries is largely supported by nature – which keeps the illusion ongoing that no damage is ever caused by an individual or even industrial actions, and nature takes care of everything – all the smoky mist in the air gets swept by gusts of winds and washed away by rain showers – whether it is smokers puffing out weed or cigarette smoke, or chimneys gushing out industrial smoke, or infuriated dry forests burning themselves out.
Sure, nature takes care of it, but not all of it – at least not as quickly as we believe it does. Smoke eventually disappears, particles settle, skies clear, and the air quality returns to normal; but the soot only disperses – it does not disappear, carbon dioxide released lingers in the air for hundreds of years, the lost forests don't regrow fast enough to reabsorb it, the ecosystem damage is not temporary, and the warming effect persists and affects our world in more than one way.
Nature's support in the interim is indeed helpful for us to breathe and continue living so that we could do our best to reverse the damage in our little ways with our time on earth. Yet if we take it on our shoulders to bash nature's efforts by throwing burning cigarettes around while camp firing in dry woods, without caring about those who are to breathe this air after we are gone, then the elements of this interconnected cosmos catch hold of our intentions and actions and make us pay for it in some way or the other while we are still around.
Our sufferings may not seem connected to our actions in the bigger picture, but all dots are connected on the cosmic canvas.