I Know a Guy Who Put More Care into Choosing a Fly Rod Than a Wife

I know a guy who put more care into choosing a fly rod than a wife. For others, skiing or snowboarding are the main attractions in this world. If collective humanity fails to rise up nonviolently against relatively few greedy and/or stubborn men destroying so much with fossil fuels, then fly fishing, skiing, snowboarding and other countless interests will be history, only seen in old films or museums. I wrote about this in The Columbian (newspaper for Vancouver, WA) June 25, 2016, “Letter: We [salmon anglers] must become climate activists.”

Four days ago when the BBC posted the video and heading “People left dangling upside down on amusement park ride,” I thought it was a future metaphor for developed nations after Arctic ice loss or the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation) shutting down. Instead, it was about people rescued from Oaks Park near Portland, Oregon, where I roller skated as a kid.

When I wonder if humans have potential to help themselves and nonhumans, I recall a video with about 7.3 million views about British Columbia people in July 2015 rescuing a trapped orca on tidal rocks. In other words, rescue can maybe happen if it comes before too many tipping points are crossed.

A friend suggested I watch Alan Watts videos. In addition to being a self-described “rascal,” Watts was a former Anglican priest, Professor of Comparative Philosophy at the American Academy of Asian Studies, and Harvard University fellow. His videos “The Whole Thing Is A Hoax – Alan Watts On The Human Society” with 599,000 views, and “This Video Will Make You See Things Differently – Alan Watts On The Illusion Of The Future” with 17,873 views, recorded in the 1960s and 1970s, are highly relevant to our Climate Emergency now.

Regarding the “rascal” note above, Watts said in his teaching, “INDIVIDUAL AND THE WORLD,” “So, to this part of life one must say it is important to be a little mad. When a bridge built of steel doesn’t swing in the wind, it’s going to crash. It has no give. And so, likewise, people who don’t have any give are in danger of being insane. In order to be sane you must have—just as I said the stew has to have a little salt in it—the good human being has to have a little rascality in him. So the sane person, especially the mature person, must have a little craziness. And just as it says in the Book of Genesis that God ordered that every seventh day should be a holiday, one seventh of your life should be madness. Otherwise you’ll be crazy, because too rigid. And therefore it’s important for all of us who are set in our ways (who are habituated to certain patterns of life, and we cling to these) to get off it—not all the time, but about a seventh of the time—and learn to swing.”

Maybe this is why John Belushi’s “Animal House Guitar Scene” has 953,000 views on YouTube.

I am grateful San Diego State University Library included my book Bridge at the End of the World: New and Selected Poems (Blue Light Press, 2023) in their “Celebrating Earth Day During National Poetry Month 2024” along with books by Billy Collins, Jorie Graham, Barbara Kingsolver, Ursula K. Le Guin, W.S. Merwin, and Mary Oliver.