Vancouver Too Many Band-aid Solutions for Systemic Problems
No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. – Albert Einstein
This is not my typical post. It consists of more questions than answers and what I really want to know is how you feel about these images.
This is today’s 24H News frontpage. It seems that what makes the headlines is not food shortages at the food bank or that we have the most chronically destitute skid row on the planet. It’s about the fact that we have an abundance of crack users and not enough crack pipes. We have a systemic problem not just and addiction problem. Paraphrasing the Einstein quote above – the people and the thinking in the system that have allowed this social disease to propagate are very unlikely to be able to solve the problem.
8 Blocks away from Canada’s poorest postal code where thousands drug users live in 3rd world conditions I snapped this picture. It’s from boxing day. Seems people waiting to get into the Best Buy Boxing Day Sale felt it was okay to pile their empty cups and garbage on top of two news stands instead of (gasp) holding onto them and disposing of them in an ethical way. My hypothesis: these consumer drones were so fixated to their big screen TV’s they couldn’t make the right decision in their trance. In addition to this… everyone else was doing it. (similar logic for the riots).
Lastly I think that this image sums it up. We should be reaching for this button more often than the “Easy Button.” Our thinking and level of personal responsibility on all fronts needs to be adjusted. What has to change? I think as we discard our garbage while we buy new “things” and hope that big brother will take care of all of our problems we will be doomed to propagate these social sicknesses and to a greater level. The solution isn’t more money from government or more “things” – it’s a new consciousness. What has to change on a individual level to make this happen?
