Reawakening - Puzzling the Pieces Together

As the inactivity of this website has shown, the last three years of my life have been a blur.

Often short of breath with the whirlwind my life has become, I haven't had too many opportunities to stop and reflect.  I can list off the adventures I've been on, the various campaign metrics the Sierra Club has put before me, the personal triumphs and defeats I have borne.  Yet, despite this, for the longest time I haven't felt any sense of accomplishment or momentum in my life.  For quite a while I've found myself describing the place I'm in as being stuck and lost.  I articulate with close friends the feeling of not being able to be myself.  I'm too bogged down into the day-by-day to feel relaxed in my own skin.

I'm reacting from crisis to crisis, occasionally taking a side step out with a hike or weekend adventure with a friend, to step right back into the chaos.  I put my all into resolving those crises to find myself locking into this prolonged burnout.  After over seven years of various organizing, at age 25, I know I will become re-empowered eventually.  But what I have been enduring is different as something deeper has been weighing on to me for several years.

If I were to wager a guess, the fact my life dramatically changed after graduating college is the biggest factor of this.  Not only did my close friends in college go to various stretches of the globe, but my idea of the comfort of home disappeared with the death of my father in mid-2011 as my mother moved halfway across the country from the home I grew up in.  I then relocated to Denver not knowing a soul, which I have no regrets about and thoroughly enjoy the culture and location, but haven't quite found the personal balance I desire. 

Yet, I think that's beginning to change...

 ...

Yesterday, I found out a woman I had only met once during a relaxing summer afternoon gathering of friends committed suicide.  When I met her I could tell she had a big heart and fun personality, but at the same time something was off, perhaps even vulnerable about her.  Being sensitive from my own struggles with anxiety, I could tell she had underlying insecurities she was working hard not to show.  I just didn't know how deep they truly were.

My unsettled friend who invited me for the gathering earlier this year, who is her immediate neighbor, told me the night before died she was trying to give away her cat and was mentioning something about needing a good criminal attorney.  My friend said he hugged her to try to make her feel better, and he realizes he was likely her last physical contact.  He is considering moving now since just a wall separated him from what happened, and I certainly can't blame him.

While I'm sure details of her reasoning to ending her life are to come, I hold the fact she obviously felt like she was stuck and had no other option close to my heart.  I've dealt with several suicidal people before, including my own struggles with suicidal thoughts over a decade ago, and it is tragic to know people fundamentally see no other way out.  I've come across this issue often enough in my work while doing volunteer outreach, and even in some personal relationships, I recently signed up for a suicide awareness course a local college is putting on.  I sadly have experienced the need to call the police or hunt down someone's doctor several times to assess if the people I'm hearing from are a risk to themselves or even others.

I understand the feeling of being stuck, and being lured to find an immediate end.  These suicidal people which I've come across are the extreme examples in comparison, but I'm going to make a cautionary transition to relate this to general burnout -- so bare with me.  

Burnout is the idea one's ability to cope with certain challenges is burned up and you find yourself out of energy to deal with those challenges.  I use challenge loosely to leave up for interpretation.  Some may find going outside or picking up a phone as an enormous challenge, as I once did many years ago.  To compare, I now consider planning events, recruiting dozens of people, and media outreach around major federal hearings on carbon pollution standards while working with a variety of diverse partners a challenge which at times can be hard to deal with.  Either way, burnout or the cycle of burnout can make one feel stuck and aimless, which is where I have been, and several recent events including the suicide have made me reflect upon this.

...
 
Ever since I started organizing in my early years of college, I realized I was unique in my personal inspiration for raising awareness of issues of environmental sustainability.  I would find myself after major events I coordinated with an enduring bittersweet mix of accomplishment and complete burnout.  What would inspire me and help me move beyond the burnout was working to empower others to take action, be leaders, and find their passions in the quest for a better, more environmentally sustainable future.  It sounds corny, but out of hundreds and hundreds of students I helped outreach and recruit, I know a solid dozen individuals who have become amazing leaders in their own ways.  They work on issues from coal mining to organic farming to police department accountability and many others in communities all over.  When I think of their stories, it re-ignites my internal fire to help 'plant the seed of sustainability,' as I like to call it, for others. (I guess one could say my definition of the 'seed of sustainability' can be compared to general progressivism, but I like to keep it an environmental focus).

The dozen people I refer to seem to be rare exceptions, as in comparison so many others who get deeply interested in issues of sustainability experience their first or second major burnout, get stuck within it, and step back to a place where they don't have to worry about the challenges we face in our society and world today.  I always respect when someone realizes they need to step back, and at times become even envious.  For some reason I haven't found that luxury of stepping back because it has become engrained within my soul to pay attention to the issues we face and fight for a better community.

Not being able to step out from fighting for a better community is something which I feel makes me on the more rare side of people I meet, and is something I am working to understand.  I burnout, but always find myself coming back.  Why?  How do I get unstuck?  How can I get others unstuck?

...

On September 9th I was biking down a hill to catch a green light in a shared bike / car lane when a car sped out of a blind alleyway.  The driver stopped directly in front of me and I slammed into the side of her bumper, flipped over the hood, and landed flat on the pavement.  My clothing-filled backpack cushioned my fall, but I ended up with multiple bruises, likely a small hairline fracture in my elbow, and an upslip in my pelvis which I only found out about six weeks later.  My bike was deemed a loss.  (expect another blog post on this soon)

If I hadn't been wearing the backpack; if I hadn't been wearing a helmet; if I had been going slightly faster--- I would have been in the hospital or worse.  This was a major wake-up call for me and I soon texted several friends to let them know I love them.

The bike crash underlined the fact I've felt stuck, or burned out, in varying degrees for a couple years now.  I realized just how much my life has rushed by lately.  I realized I let my work with the Sierra Club, or as a board member with my neighborhood association, I've neglected the things which make me feel like me.  I've neglected my family life as medical issues and conflicts weigh a heavy burden on our relationships, I've neglected MY health as I only recently went to the dentist and eye doctor for the first time in years, I've neglected my professional development as my resume and LinkedIn account remain not updated for over two years, and I've neglected my creativity in writing and enjoyment of reading among countless other things.

The bike crash made me realize anew I have been burned out.  Every new crisis in my life was a heavier weight to bare.  How do I rebound from this long-term burnout?

...

A week after my crash on my bike, Colorado experienced between a 500 and 1,000 year flood (I suspect this is likely becoming a once in a decade flood).  Hundreds of bridges were washed out, over 200 square miles of land flooded, and over 20,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. 

While this was happening I was being asked by the Sierra Club to organize around new Environmental Protection Agency carbon pollution rules, holding a supportive rally in a few weeks.  A two week timeline is admittedly pretty strict in the organizing world and certainly encourages organizer burnout.  With a sigh I began to line up the organizational logistics with reserving the grounds at the capitol building, when several conversations came up with friends in other organizations about an opportunity for the environmental community to respond to the flooding disaster.

A light went off above my head.

On-the-ground community organizing empowers volunteers and re-ignites my fire.  Here is an opportunity to apply the advocacy of supporting federal pollution standards while providing much needed relief for the community.  After all, it's just as important to pick up a shovel to help dig out neighbors as showing your support for strong EPA carbon protections to prevent worsening climate disruption. 

I realized it would be helpful to line up several volunteer opportunities across the region during one weekend to support recovery efforts.  I based this idea off of my days at Virginia Tech with “The Big Event” where thousands of students sign up to support various community service projects across the region over one weekend.  

I knew from my continuing coalition work in Colorado we are able to jointly outreach to 100,000+ folks in the environmental community alone.  I figured a positive recovery effort such as this could garner at least 100 community members to volunteer.  To wrap up the weekend, I put together an appreciation event to have speakers talk about the need to act on carbon pollution. I ended up calling the weekend “Colorado Flood Recovery Weekend” and the wrap-up event “Celebrating Community Resilience.”

The first realization I had was just how uncoordinated the recovery process was at three weeks after the flooding occurred.  One of the first groups I called was the Red Cross to find they only provide food and shelter, not recovery support.  The state set up a website for volunteers interested in recovery efforts to sign-up, but I never got an official response from them.  

I heard Habitat for Humanity was involved with some of the clean-up efforts and gave them a call.  They were not prepared and told me they are referring all of their volunteers to Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian relief organization which coordinate daily clean-ups and they were happy to plug us into a few of their events.  Soon I  reached out to my contacts in the city of Boulder and eventually was referred to the city attorney who became an default recovery coordinator for the region.  Boulder, along with feedback from some cold-calls to the city of Longmont, were working through FEMA to determine what could be safe to work on.  Thanks partly to my continued persistence over a week, both Boulder and Longmont were able to pull together opportunities for us to plug into.  

I learned a independent group of climbing friends created a group called Mudslingers in the region to coordinate volunteers to dig out homes.  They networked with organizers from Boulder Flood Relief, a group started from Occupy Sandy.   Quickly I found myself constantly on the phone coordinating between various partners for opportunities and was able to pull together six different times and locations for volunteers to support both home cleanups and public lands from the Boulder Reservoir to a Longmont park. 

Once I had several events confirmed, I began reaching out to coalition partners for their support in getting volunteers for the weekend.  In a very short amount of time I was able to pull together a dozen groups who were committed to e-mailing their members our e-mail alert.   Once the e-mails started going out, the numbers increased fairly quickly and within just a couple days together we were able to recruit over 100 folks-- reaching the goal I threw together.

Some of the six events had more respondents than others, but nearly all of them had at least a handful of participants.  When word got out, I also began receiving messages from other municipalities and counties asking for our support.  It was difficult to get a message from the Incident Commander for a hard-hit city expressing disappointment for not being included in our volunteer efforts.  A career in FEMA beckoned as I politely offered the least I could do which is to share our lists of volunteers interested in continued cleanup efforts.

Also media picked up interest and we had a few shout-outs from community radio station KGNU 88.5 FM and the Boulder Weekly who followed up from a recent story on the carbon standards I was earlier interviewed for .  These initial stories helped with our recruitment efforts while getting our FAR climate messaging out there.  We were even able to get on channel four at the end of the day.

As the weekend got going I was able to take a lot of videos and photos and applied my media skills to create a YouTube video with a call to action:

I hadn't done any video work in a while, so it was good to know I still have some skills and embrace some long underused creativity.

The next day we were at a farmhouse and I ended up being the coordination lead for the day by default.  It had been a long while since I was in charge of coordinating a group of people, and ultimately was a lot of fun while doing a lot of shared hard work.

 

 

The entire weekend was an enormous success, being able to help out the community while personally reinvigorating myself.  I realized throughout the weekend I had a feeling of being unstuck and in my own shoes again, a first for a long time.  

Shortly, though, from all of the hard work I put into the weekend I found myself again in a deep burnout.

As I alluded to earlier, event planning is bittersweet.  You get a sense of accomplishment while at the same time you feel exhausted as the next round of work starts.  After the weekend suddenly I faced building a new Sierra Club campaign for Colorado, supporting an important EPA hearing, and hold the responsibility for being lead on several elements with my neighborhood organization.  There wasn't much of a break and the day I had scheduled to take off had to be scratched because so much was going on.  I started to drag and become easily frustrated at various coordination issues, symptoms of the all-too-familiar burnout. 

...

Hearing of the suicide yesterday still echos in my mind.  It is a wake-up call to me.  I figure I've met or known a few dozen people who have died in my life now, some were mere acquaintances who were murdered during the shooting at Virginia Tech, others died of old age, my father had a second heart attack, a distant friend with an overflowing passion died in a car crash in Los Angeles... Life is precious, and in an instant it can be gone.

To become so overwhelmed and hopeless one takes their life is a heavy toll, in part a reflection of the hyper-individualistic isolated society we live in.  Depression can be a symptom of being burned out, and depression is an obsessive mental sickness which blinds and consumes, eroding the ability to cope.  But what does the opposite of this?

A strong community helps you cope.  A community provides reflection and support.  Community provides a mirror to reflect upon, to take pause and ask "Am I in a place I should be now?  What support do I have to get unstuck?"  

The tagline for Blacksburg, Virginia, the town where Virginia Tech is located, is 'a special place.'  After traveling across the country I have to agree, because the strong value of community is what I feel makes it unique.  Virginia Tech and Blacksburg are somewhat of an islanded community in Southwest Virginia, and makes the positive impact various organizations can have all the more powerful.  Things are so close and so walkable, community interactions are constant.  How does one value the ability to stop while biking down the street to say hi to a friend you recognize, verses being isolated in a car passing by?  How often do you run into a town councilor at the farmers market?

I didn't have a frat I belonged to in college, but instead was a leader with the Environmental Coalition at Virginia Tech.  We outreached and educated on important issues, we did research and pushed the administration to embrace a sustainability plan, we recruited and empowered countless youth across the state.  I made extremely close friends with a variety of talents there, and frankly we got sh*t done.  It was empowering on so many levels, and my heart was fulfilled.

I won't go into the issues of sprawl or lack of community-oriented developments and values, as they are each a thesis within themselves.  But what I will say is anyone feeling stuck will find themselves quickly unstuck if they are in a supportive community which works to do accomplish good, like the Environmental Coalition.  Anyone finding themselves depressed would find a friend there to support them.  If the group was burned out, a camping trip would be planned to reset.  And how wouldn't you feel motivated when you actually create change as you work-- whether by lobbying the campus president or a state senator on an issue you care about?  It embraces the idea our society is a democracy and we have a responsibility to be active in citizen engagement.  It fulfills a purpose.

I haven't found a group like the Environmental Coalition in Denver.  So I guess I'm going to have to form one.

...

In recent weeks I've met a few people who are interested in bringing together a new group of citizens interested in pursuing sustainability ideas in Denver.  They include volunteers young and old, friends in coalition groups, and a couple city councilors so far.  I feel like things are on the verge of something great, and I want to grab a strong hold of it.  

I'll give details later, but I'm working to see if a new law can be implemented to improve bike safety, and paired with my work in the Sierra Club and Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods hope to create as much overlap with my work as possible.  With some help, I hope to start putting together a networked community of newly engaged activists who plant and grow the seeds of sustainability within each other.  I can see the endless potential of our community barely tapped, with too many feeling stuck behind high walls.  I plan to break down those walls.  

Through all this, if I can empower just one person to step out from being stuck and see their potential to do good in our community, perhaps that's one more Bryce Carter in the world.  Perhaps that's a food activist to come.  Perhaps someone who will achieve world peace.  Perhaps it's one less suicide in the world.

Seeing this vision of growing a community for sustainability, I already feel my burnout dissipating.  

I realize I'm not stuck-- I'm exactly where I need to be.

So, if I were to write a book this is how I would begin it.

 Caution: working draft.

Prologue - I’m Coming Home.

I’m coming home, I’m coming home.  Tell the World I’m coming home. Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday.  I know my kingdom awaits and they’ve forgiven my mistakes.  I’m coming home, I’m coming home.  Tell the World I’m coming.

I felt exhausted as I drove along the freeway.  Spring rang fresh as I drove through Ohio, the first hints of the forested Appalachian foothills spasming with green.  The scene was reinvigorating after spending four months organizing in North Dakota during the heart of winter.

I’m coming home... I’m coming home...

The radio was playing a new song of coming home, echoing my feelings as the miles ticked by as I grew closer and closer to Northern Virginia.  I grew up in the same household there my whole life, went to college at Virginia Tech, and soon jumped headfirst into the world after graduating and traveled across the country to hone in my skills for community organizing.

Tell the world I’m coming home...

I felt nearly defeated.  I was still reeling from almost being fired from my job several weeks earlier as I couldn’t deliver ‘the metrics’ desired, despite fighting -50° fahrenheit wind chills and an unforgiving ultra-conservative landscape for an idealistic organizer.  Since I was limited in what I could do for my advocacy-driven metrics, I organized with the small progressive community a statewide conservation issue summit.  Several dozen people came, though only a fraction attended my breakout on my campaign for livestock marketing fairness.  Two in the breakout group were spies gleaning information about me and how much of a threat the campaign was.

Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday...

While I reveled in the feeling of a homecoming, I also felt a impending sense of loss.  I felt like this would be one of the last times I would have this feeling.  My parents recently purchased a home in upper Michigan to retire in, planning to move for the first time in my life.  The move would be tasking for both of them, but especially my father.  My father hadn’t been healthy for many years and even the most trivial tasks proved enormous for him.  In recent phone conversations, he seemed impatient and constantly irritable.

I know my kingdom awaits and they’ve forgiven my mistakes.

The road started to rise and fall, soft curves turning faster with the next wave of the mountains.  Pennsylvania state line.  Back-to-back tollbooths.  I glanced at the navigation: four more hours.  With a sigh, I lean back in the drivers seat and loosen my grip on the steering wheel.  I could feel the shadow over me of a turning page to a new chapter of my life, uncertain where the the story of me will go.

I thought back to last summer after graduating college.  While wading through the pristine New River on an early summer day, I found myself climbing a jumping rock in the middle of the river I’ve seen others use and hesitated on the edge.  The water was tumultuous, and I was unable to see the bottom.  Afraid of the unknown, President Roosevelt’s words entered my mind: “There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.”  I smiled to myself, closed my eyes and jumped.

Tell the World I’m coming.

I was 22 by the time I found myself driving home early that spring.  In my youth I was extensively teased and bullied.  I watched in horror the events unfolding at Columbine, and soon I found myself being carefully watchd by my teachers.  Walking between classes in middle school I heard the distant sirens wailing on their way to the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001.  I silently feared the Cessna planes flying above our neighborhood were dropping anthrax.  We stayed inside during physical education because unknown deadly snipers were targeting fellow students.  Friends looked me in the eye to tell me they were going to shoot up our school.  

I easily fell obsessively in love.  I fought and won against having a label of being learning disabled.  I spent years embracing a potential career in engineering, with construction internships leading up to working at the Pentagon renovation for a summer.  I had joyrides with friends throughout suburbia, seeking for the darkened corners for a glimpse at the starry night sky.

In lockdown, my class was escorted by an officer with a shotgun to the library after a stabbing.  Three news helicopters hovered above when we were released.  Several times over the years in high school we were evacuated and watched the bomb squad come to sweep the building.  Once, someone blew up a quarter stick and destroyed several lockers.

Toward my senior year I began to see the interconnectedness of the environment to our everyday lives.  I was shocked by the ignorance of the issue in my community, and got involved by volunteering hundreds of hours, planting dozens of trees and removing invasive plant species in regional parks with a Buddhist nonprofit group.

The first day of my college classes were canceled because a convict killed a police officer and escaped custody within a mile or two of campus.  My new friends and I threw a football around outside, willfully ignoring the lockdown in place.  

I engaged more and more on environmental issues, attending a statewide youth energy summit and taking my energies to organizing on campus.  

A student murdered 32 and wounded dozens of others on campus.

I ran for town council my senior year in college.

I graduated and traveled the country while organizing.

I pulled into the driveway.  Finally, I was home again.

((Copyright © 2013 Bryce Carter.  All rights reserved.))

Talking about the End of the World as we Know it

I regularly find myself in personal conversations with folks who end up wide-eyed when I tell them some of the environmental devastation that is happening across the globe.  I talk about everything from the collapse of fisheries, mercury and toxic contamination, radiological risk and exposure, sprawl development, women's rights, electricity grid capacity, renewable technologies, smart-growth ideology, transportation networks, Web 2.0 and the cloud, money in politics (across the spectrum), advances in medical technology, brain development, overpopulation, etc., and go into how they impact society at a local, national and global scale.  More importantly, I then explore how those impacts are interconnected with each other and the environment.  

Most of the time people are on the edge of their seat, never having heard of the issue I speak of, and are asking me a million questions a minute to go further.  On a rare occasion, though, that initial interest turns ugly when I explore the interconnectedness of an issue.

Particularly, I'm always dumbfounded when I hit a wall in a conversation with someone talking about how the environment I'm working to protect "out there" is no different than the one "in here" that make up the walls of your home and everything within them (even you).  Sometimes that conversation not only gets uncomfortable, but downright upsetting for the person I am talking to.

For others the wall comes up a layer deeper if I end up talking about the potential technology of downloading our minds into computers, modifying our genetic fingerprint, or creating artificial intelligence.  We already are at a day when we can begin to download images of what someone sees from the brain, control robotic arms with the mind, find out early in a pregnancy if an embryo has genetic defects (and can tell if they're pregnant from their shopping habits), and (if we really wanted to) have a pet glow-in-the-dark-cat.  What might be around the corner?  More importantly, what impacts will it have on our society?  How will it change our values?

Example: China's one-child policy, cultural favoritism for males, and the ability to determine the sex of an embryo led to abortions of those of the female sex.  Today, China is facing a skewed male-female demographic ratio that will have significant societal ramifications in the coming decades, likely to impact economies across the world, human rights, and environment in ways we can only begin to imagine. 

So, I often wonder, why do folks feel uncomfortable or even hostile when if we start diving into these topics, particularly in how they are interconnected with other areas?

In trying to piece together this idea, I realize there is a striking example today that everyone can relate to on this matter: climate change.

Why do people get so upset with the fundamental science of it?  We're burning unfathomable amounts of stuff whose material ends up floating and staying up in the sky for long periods of time, allowing heat to be kept there longer which changes local weather events accordingly.

In 2006, after An Inconvenient Truth spelled out the challenge of global warming, around 70% of the public agreed human-caused climate change is real.  By 2009 that number dropped to just 36% despite 84% of scientists reaching consensus on the matter, an impressive feat.

Putting aside the media and perception war on science of the last six years since Truth ('Climategate' was investigated by 8 diverse panels and all found no evidence of fraud or misconduct), I wanted to know why this decline in perception happened.  It doesn't make sense once you know how a concept works, you shouldn't be able to just easily unlearn it (Hey! The Law of Gravity is a lie!  Gravitygate proves it!). This perception change is an effect on society, not a cause.  I keep thinking, how can I go upstream and figure out where the source is?


It's here that I recall a special group learning class I took at Virginia Tech. 

I was part of a two-year cohort curriculum funded by the National Science Foundation called Earth Sustainability.  Each semester had a different theme: Water, Energy and Shelter, Agriculture, and then a capstone.  Each week we had a presentation from one of our several professors or a guest (including economists, artists, farmers, nuclear engineers, etc) to talk about a subject matter.  Then we would meet twice more that week to discuss that subject and work on research projects. 

In having such a diverse background of professions and perspectives presented in this class under the same theme of sustainability, I found myself connecting various concepts more easily.  In fact, that was the point of the class as this wrap-up summary explores:

"...ES students’ ability to use two or more disciplinary lenses to inform an interdisciplinary problem had, on average, advanced from naïve to apprentice levels over the two year ES program.  Exit interviews with ES students indicated that most had developed confidence in their ability to integrate and transfer content knowledge within and between disciplinary areas and had gained an appreciation for the value of multi-disciplinary ways of knowing (well outside their majors).  The vast majority of those interviewed attributed their experiences in the ES learning community to development of these skills.  This finding also was observed during exit interviews with graduating seniors who had completed the ES series two years earlier." (source)

The ES program brought together both group and conceptual learning methods which led to our class achieving higher learning standards than a normal college student.  In fact, during the wrap up of our class cohort, our professors presented graphical data showing significant increase in every learning realm compared to students who are not in the program.

After the two year program I further embraced the idea of the class, taking a just-created major designed to compliment its interdisciplinary nature called Humanities, Science and Environment.  In the core classes we regularly discussed technology and ethics.  I had flexibility to take on independent studies to explore and document the impacts of coal in the region.  I even took a service-learning class where we taught young children basic environmental concepts through after school fun and games.

It was in the last class where I learned in more detail about the different stages of cognitive, or mental, development and how they actually apply to one of the goals of the Earth Sustainability program.

The way I remember it is that there are four primary stages of mental development: infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

• Infancy relates to basic relations with objects.
  
• Childhood relates to developing associations with those objects and the basics of how they connect and interact with the world.
  
• Adolescence can develop webs of concepts and associations with the world.
  
• Adulthood is where multiple webs of ideas and concepts can be linked together through their associations.

Now how many adults actually reach the advance stages of adulthood mental development?

Five percent.

Now was I a physiology major?  Nope.  I am throwing out the names of each stage and could be significantly off with the above definitions given my primary reference is from the class years packed away someplace unknown.  I did some Googling though, and feel the above is at least conceptually accurate as here's what I found:

"Only about 17% of the population, those with an IQ above 110, use Formal Operations [adulthood mentality] on an everyday basis. And only about 5% of the population reach the final stage of Formal Operations, true formal thought, and probably about 2% continue to develop at the Postformal Level. Of them, about 0.1% go on to complete this process. This is mainly because a person needs to be in an educational or otherwise stimulating environment, until he or she is about thirty. Most university students leave university after gaining a first degree at between the ages of twenty-two to twenty-four, so the process of Postformal development all but ceases, unless they continue to work in an intellectually stimulating environment."  (http://www.trans4mind.com/mind-development/stages-development.html)

With this knowledge and my own background, I've come to these conclusions of the cause of why public perception is so malleable on topics such as climate change:

1. The vast majority of the public can not fully understand the complex intricacies of concepts like climate change and instead rely on talking points and media to boil it down to a basic concepts (i.e. global warming warms the atmosphere vs. details of how weather patterns across the globe are fluctuating, including what could be a mini-ice age in Europe, desertification in the mid-west, and flooding in the Northeast)
   
2. The vast majority of the public are not regularly engaged in a 'intellectually stimulating environment' or community, nor have had a background with an effective learning program like Earth Sustainability that promotes an increase in mental development.  The bottom line on this point is our educational system is failing us.  Some studies have shown up to half of Americans don't believe in scientific theory that support, say, the proven concept of evolution.
   
3. The public is surrounded by and intellectually paralyzed with anxiety, especially nowadays from the news and advertising media.  Whether it's the liberals or the conservatives or economy or fashion or the hottest new product or a hundred thousand dollars debt for tuition, people are always being bombarded with reasons to be insecure about themselves and the world they live in.  This constant anxiety exposure is not conductive toward achieving an 'intellectually stimulating environment,' hindering potential cognitive growth in our society.

So when I have conversations about these issues, why do those walls come up?  A lot of these concepts are intimidating, not only on how complex they are, but also in the fact that we are fundamentally talking about the end of the world as we know it.  Folks haven't truly engaged their minds on the process of seeing the connections of an issue beyond basic knowledge (i.e. protecting the environment is good for air quality vs. how using environmentally friendly products in building materials and day-to-day use of your home will protect your and your family's health from toxic exposure and reduce your dog's risk of cancer).

Furthermore, people are exhausted.  We're over mediated and in a constant state of anxiety.  No one wants to spend any more time than they have to on an issue because it feels all the more overwhelming.  Unless they grew up in an educational environment that promotes interdisciplinary learning, the majority of people don't understand or can fully appreciate the importance of the interconnections in various fields of study and find it a tiring task. 

Finally, we're individualistic as an society.  Environmental issues, despite being connected to everything in our society, is a very personal and independent concept for folks.  There is a perception of choice in regards to the environment (i.e. jobs vs. environment), when in fact every decision we make as an individual and as a society make environmental impacts.  You can walk or drive a car.  You can buy local foods or an apple from New Zealand.  Your furniture can be built from old-growth forest or sustainably harvested wood, or picked up used at a thrift store.

So when talking about the environment, folks can take it personally because they feel it is a choice for them.  With the help of media, sides are created to promote the concept of choosing a side on an environmental issue such as whether climate change 'exists' or not, despite all evidence on the contrary.  Some might as well proclaim the Earth flat and center of the universe.

Given the knowledge I hold, I see myself as an educator for those that want to listen and hear what's happening and to share it themselves with others.  It is only through those intimate conversations or in a community learning setting that a level of comfort and familiarity is created to promote deeper learning.  I am often overwhelmed and feel isolated by how disconnected the public is from the deeper issues we face and how they connect, but things can change one conversation at a time.

The Death of my Father

When I watched my father slowly die over several days (or you could say for a decade), I found myself having to think about the science and biology of it.  How one by one his organs were failing.  Oxygen wasn’t getting to his brain.  His kidneys were no longer working.  His lungs were filling with fluid.  His memory was gone.  He was no longer the man I knew.  Near the end he was like a wild animal.

I got the call from my sister while I was doing door-to-door canvassing.  My father was in the hospital.  There was a bit of a reassurance in her voice.  My dad was in the hospital a lot, usually for appointments, though sometimes for medical scares.  This is just another time.

In the past, one medication assigned by one doctor could mess up another medication assigned by another doctor -- the final drug cocktail ingested would make his eyes go yellow from stage 2 kidney failure.  I’ll never forget how bright blue his pupils were when I was home and the doctor called to say the blood test results show he needs to go to the emergency room immediately.  He was scared, but he went in and after a few days and tests at the hospital he would be back home and things would be back to ‘normal.’

I quote normal because things were never normal.  Not when your father is overweight and only half his heart is active.  He had a silent heart attack in 2001.  The doctors gave him 10 years at most with diet and exercise.  I imagine he was terrified and it paralyzed him.  Despite efforts of the family, he overall declined diet and exercise; consequencely putting an unspeakable toll on the family in the decade that followed.  Nevertheless he stuck to the doctor’s timeline.

The time I had in middle school and early-to-mid high school was dark.  Hormones go rampant, drama ensues, and there isn’t much wiggle-room for an overly sensitive kid who is constantly wondering when his father might die. 

I always wondered what it would be like to throw a baseball around with him, or build that homemade go-kart like he promised. 

Then again, I think of my grandfather on my mother’s side when I was a small child.  He was helping build a box-kite for me, as he was a superior carpenter, but we never finished it.  By the next time I visited his California home, the Alzheimer’s disease had mostly taken over and the kite was no where to be seen.  He died soon after.

Perhaps its better my father never got into those projects with me.

My father’s health was like the ocean tides, some days he was himself, others not so much, and sometimes he was a raging tsunami.  Imbalance with diabetes can do that.  Seeing his dependency on medications, and accompanying him on those hospital visits, made me fearful of meds and have a severe dislike of medical centers.

As the years tallied up after his heart attack, death was always a gambling thought.  When would he die?  At times he got really bad and it didn’t look likely he would live to see my high school graduation.  Then my college years continued on, and things became less ‘when’ and more accepting of what it was.  He was always ill, always dying.

I would always hug or shake his hand before heading back down to college.  Sometimes I would stare at him before walking out of the room—would this be the last time I see him?  My father silently caught on to my thought one time, his face showing hints of uncharacteristic sorrow.  I hurriedly turned and walked out of the house.

As I grew up, my room was directly across from my parents’.  I would always see my father napping on the bed, his big round belly rising and falling with this sometimes labored breathing.  Occasionally I stopped and watched his belly, fearful of the day I would look and see it still.

Over all those years I tried everything I could to get him to change.  I would positively encourage him.  I would yell and scream at him.  Only once or twice did he get on a treadmill for a few minutes, and more than a few times I made him cry.  Eventually I had to give up and start trying to focus on my own life, a process that took years and helped with the distance college brought.

Ironically, I had to take on my fears of medication and medical centers when I nearly died in 2009 in the middle of my election bid for Blacksburg Town Council.

A recent google search comes up with this explanation: “hypokalemic thyrotoxic periodic paralysis with thyrotoxic psychosis and hypercapnic respiratory failure.”  In English: I eventually was diagnosed with Graves’ disease, a condition that causes my thyroid to be over active.  Due to a surge of thyroid hormones it started to shut down my system and fully paralyzed me in the middle of the night.  I was one symptom away from it paralyzing my lungs and killing me.

Perhaps in the fact that I was always seeing sickness with my father I failed to appreciate my own health.  At the time I thought my paralysis was due to me being really sick, despite my head being clear.  After around 30 minutes of effort, I crawled to the bathroom and found my temperature was just 95 degrees.  I took a hot bath and then went back to bed-- meh, I thought, I ought to feel better in the morning.  I was lucky I ended up being ok after that episode.  I saw a doctor the next day who did blood work that led me to find out about the Graves’ disease.  Three months later, as there is no cure, I had my thyroid removed.

A few years before that, freshman year, I remember being up in the middle of the night on a weekend, lying on the floor of my girlfriend’s dorm.  I was withering in pain as my ears bubbled and popped.  I had a fever and ear infections.  Despite the immediate health problems, I figured I would go to the doctor later and didn’t even consider the ER.  I was again lucky in there was only minor scaring in my ears and no loss of hearing.

More recently, I wasn’t so fortunate. In the last year I had dull pains crop up in my lower left abdomen, even went to the ER after it wouldn’t go away for a few days.  They found nothing after doing several tests.  Months later the pain continued and I decided to get a colonoscopy to get to the bottom of it. 

Hours after that lovely process, which ended up showing nothing, I went to the ER with immense pain in my testicle.  I soon found out I had a history of testicular torsion.  Yes, it is as nasty as it sounds.  Your testicle can twist and cut off blood flow.  I had some symptoms and discomfort for years with my testicle, but always dismissed it and it got better. 

After years of occasional incidents, apparently the pain shot north toward my lower left abdomen.  For this latest incident, I dismissed the pain for too long.  You only have about 6 hours to untwist a testicle.  By the time I was in the ER and despite the heroic efforts of the medical team-- my gurney nurse was a veteran and passionately talked how he helped save his buddy’s testicle and was going to do it again for me-- my testicle was already dead and had to be surgically removed.

That’s one way to be knocked off your feet for a few weeks.  That was one of the first times I had an opportunity to really think about my father passing, 6 months after the fact.  I ended up spending a lot of time staring at the ceiling.

Rewinding to that afternoon where I just hung up the phone with my sister who said Dad was in the hospital, I was shocked and confused.  I didn’t get any details, but I knew it wasn’t good.  I came home the weekend before as it was Memorial Day Weekend; I remember shaking my father’s hand before I left back for work a few states away and recalled how cold it was.  The usual thought of him being close to death popped in my head, but I quickly dismissed it.  It was useless to think that way.

Still holding my phone and standing on the side of a neighborhood street, I called the director of my office and then my regional coordinator of our canvassing operation to let them know I needed to take off the rest of the afternoon (I had already made my fundraising quota).  I went down to a neighboring stream in a forest and sat and embraced the shock. Was I being foolish with my emotions?  Will Dad bounce back like usual?  The day wrapped up without incident.

The next morning as we were gearing up for the day and setting up our turf for canvassing, my mother called.  I stepped out in the hallway to hear my Mom in a choked up voice say I needed to come home, it was a second heart attack.  I knew what that meant.  With my back against the wall, I slid to the floor and starred ahead for a minute as the morning light came gently through the hall window.

I pulled myself together and got up.  Knowing the canvass operation needed my support, I felt guilty.  I walked into the next room and told the three friends there I had to go, my father is dying.  I called the regional coordinator who gave an agitated ‘go now!’ over the phone, understanding the importance of me being with my father.  I walked zombie-like to my car and drove to my apartment, grabbing a box and throwing random clothes in it unsure how long I would be gone.

It was impossible not to speed the several hundred miles home.  Every opening in traffic I took and sped until I got the 2 second distance behind the next car.  I still am impressed with my courtesy not to tailgate, despite thinking every minute is a minute closer to my father’s death.

Finally I arrived home and was eager to get to the hospital.  I then heard the details of the morning my Dad went to the hospital.  My Dad wasn’t responding normally while he lay in bed in the morning.  My Mom called 911.  They had to send two emergency crews to carry him out of the house.  The neighbors gathered and watched.  My parents tend to be very private people; I can’t imagine the hell it was for my mother to deal with that.

I went with my mother and sister to the hospital.  I saw the heart rate of all the patients in the ward on monitors along the hallway.  There was my father’s name, his heart rate stable.

My mother walked in first and said hello to my father like she would to a child.  “...and look, Bryce is here!” 

I slowly walked in.  My father had a breathing mask on and saw me and his eyes widened.  “Brycefff?” He said through the mask.  “What arrr you doing here?!””  I panicked but tried not to show it.  Why would I be here unless he was dying?  He doesn’t know he is dying.  I can’t let him know.

“I got the day off Dad.  I heard you were sick and wanted to come see you.”  He looked skeptical, but also disconnected.  He continued staring at me with wide eyes, like a wild animal would in trying to understand as you coo at it.  Slowly he nodded and leaned back in his pillow.  Over the hours to come I would hold his hand and squeeze it, and he would squeeze back.

Soon it became evident he was getting worse.  Occasionally a fully sentence or two would bubble out of him, but it would take countless ‘ums’ and ‘uhs’ of him trying to think what he wanted to say.  Usually he was either trying to say he was thirsty (kidney failure) or that he needed to go to the bathroom (catheter).  Or he would give a one word curse. 

One of the last recognizable moments of the man he was, was when he looked ahead and raised his bushy eyebrows and gave a weary, extended “Ohh, man...”

Given my father’s size, the nurse said it was easier for him to do his fuller bathroom duty in bed.  The nurse tasked me to tell him it was alright to do so.  In one of the less graceful moments of his passing, I spent around fifteen to twenty minutes explaining to my father that it was alright for him to go to the bathroom there.  He would stare at me, trying to understand, he would say ‘um…um…um…’, take a breath, and then try to get out of bed to walk to the bathroom.  I would hold back down his arms and tell him again he can’t get up, you can go to the bathroom here. “Um…”  He stares at me trying to put together the thought-- “um…” 

”You have to go to the bathroom”

”Yeah.”

”I know, you can go to the bathroom here.”

“Um… uh.. oh, shit.”

“Yes!  That’s the goal!”

This repeated itself many times and eventually I had to give up.  When he finally did go, a group of nurses with malcontent on their faces lined up to change the sheets under my large father.

Soon my mother and sister and I started rotations at the hospital so we could rest at home and take care of the dog.  My brother got the news while he was in Cuba, of all places.  He hurried as best as he could back to Mexico to fly home, traveling for one to two days straight.

After grabbing lunch with my mom and sister, I glanced up at the ward heart monitor screen and my heart dropped.  My father’s heart rate was off the charts.  I felt a rush of adrenaline and hurried around the corner to see a group of nurses going into my father’s room.

My Dad was distraught, flinging his arms and cursing.  He was uncomfortable and felt trapped and was fighting.  The nurses were doing their best to keep him under control.  I think they had to drug him to calm him down.  At a later incident my mother ended up with bruises on her arms; my Dad is a big, but strong man.  Even when dying.

On my phone I took a video of our dog, Princess, and showed it to my father.  “Hey Princess… Hi baby” my father sluggishly said.  

At last my brother arrived, but at this point my father was no longer recognizable.  He tossed and turned, his eyes searching wildly across the room to close for a minute only to wildly search a moment later.  He didn’t notice my brother’s arrival as he stood there and took in the situation.

When I saw my Dad open his eyes slightly toward my brother, I told him to look at Dad.  He smiled and said “Hey, Dad” and with that my father eyes bulged as he leaned in and stared straight at him for several seconds.

“Good.  He recognized you!  He knows you’re here,” said my mother.

The animalistic qualities were all my father had by this time, restlessly shifting and staring wildly around.  As my family stood around, I found myself gravitating away from my Dad’s line of sight and slumped in a chair and tried not to cry. 

There was nothing more the hospital could do that this point.  The conversation of hospice came up and as soon as a room would be made available he would be transferred.  After ten years of my father dying, he may remain in this condition for many more months.  The thought was unbearable.

As my sister and I finished our hospital shift in the very early morning hours, I said good bye and I love you to my Dad.  He, in a tired, muffled tone, said “I muve you.”

My sister and I went home and slept.  A few hours later I got up and was downstairs when the phone rang.

“Bryce.”

Her voice cracked.

”Dad’s passed.”

I hurried upstairs and my sister was already awake from the expectation.  She looked at me and all I could do was nod.

My mother and brother went to get some lunch.  My mom said to my Dad they would be right back.  My Dad was calm and my mom thinks he gave an acknowledgement of “mmmhmm.”  While at lunch they got a call from a nurse to come back; when they arrived they said he passed suddenly.  Perhaps he just waited to be alone.

At first neither my sister nor I wanted to see him.  We drove to the hospital nevertheless, solemn and hearts heavy.  We got to the ward.  I looked and saw a straight line where my father’s name was on the hallway heart monitor.  The curtain to the room was closed.  Slowly, reluctantly, I walked in.

It’s true what they say, how peaceful someone can look in death.  Heck, my Dad even had a slight smile on his face.  His balded forehead began showing a web of red and white as his blood pooled in his body, but otherwise he could have been alive.  The room truly was filled with peace and warmth.

I took his still warm hand and squeezed it with no response.  I kissed his cooling forehead and that was it.  So it goes.

Ironically after all those years of staring at his belly, fearful of it being still, it still moved in his death as the chemicals of his body settled.  

We walked out of the room. 

The next month was weird, to say the least.

I made a few calls to my supervisors to let them know I needed to take a month off.  At one point when I sheepishly apologized for the inconvenience of it all, I got a scoff: “Inconvenience? Well that’s an understatement.”  I didn’t know what to say, and so I said thank you and hung up. 

I made the calls and arrangement for his cremation; picked up his ashes.  It’s weird to see the red velvet bag on a table and to know the remains of your father are inside.  Though I knew it isn’t ‘him,’ so to speak.  He is gone.

I still took extra care in transporting his ashes, even putting the bag in the front seat belt.  For all the times I transported my father, working with his hefty figure and helping get in and out, this relatively small box was about as foreign of an experience as it could get.

My parents bought a house to retire in just before he passed and so for the next month my mother and sister and I went there to reflect.  It was almost like it didn’t happen, like it was a dream and my Dad is still at our old home waiting for us to return.  On the drive back while playing some music of a Broadway show my parents saw, my mother finally broke down.  “He’s not going to be there,” she sobbed.

I have always been proud of my father.  Despite all the reasons I have to be angry and unforgiving for the burden put on myself and our family for so long, I never blamed him.  He had a challenging upbringing and lacked a solid father figure himself.  He got into the military and had a long and successful career in the intelligence field.  He lived a full life before I was born, a life I never knew.  He knew this, and that is why it was important to him to show a piece of that life by being buried in Arlington Cemetery. 

From his years with the Army Reserves he got up to the rank of Colonel.  He was one rank below having a jet flyover for the ceremony.  My family decided to have only immediate members attend the funeral; it is what my father would have wanted as well.  Two charter buses of military personel escorted my father’s remains.  Horse drawn carriage, the riderless horse with boots on backwards, the band, the absolute precision of the march, the gun salute. 

Back in 2009 while I was running for Town Council, I remember talking with my father about my achievements.  I explained to him that I wouldn’t be the man I am today, being as involved as I am to even run for Town Council at age 20, if it wasn’t for the father that I have.  Filled with pride, he cried.

My father, Robert Carter, was extremely proud of his children.  We meant everything to him.  I consider myself extremely fortunate that I don’t have college debt and fully own my car.  My Dad made sure we were taken care of.  That was his gift to us that I can only fully appreciate now after he is gone.

Given my father’s background in intelligence, he had a habit of following his children online.  Sometimes he would spookily bring up something someone posted on my Facebook wall.  In high school it freaked me out, but in college I embraced Facebook and later Twitter as it was an easy way for my Dad to see and experience what I’m experiencing.  It was always fun if I was on the main field in college and I would call my Dad to check out the school’s web camera and watch me as we talked.  The habit of Twitter remains with me today; I consider it my lazy method of blogging.

In the past few months I’ve visited home a couple times to help my mother finish the move to the retirement home.  I’ve now gone through several things of my father’s including a lot of military pictures and documents.  I never knew it, but he was 50% deaf in one ear, 33% in the other after discharging his weapon without ear protection.

The last year of my life has felt like many years.  My time has been filled with organizing full-time, traveling and adventuring, health issues, relationships, and my father’s death.  There hasn’t been a chance to truly reflect.  That’s one reason why this blog has remained unused.

For a transition to what I’m up to nowadays, I’m watching Mad Men and can’t help but imagine my father growing up in that era as he would have been in his early 20s.  Slowly I am piecing together the man I never knew, and I’m ever more proud of him.

I know today that my Dad would be immensely proud of me, and that is something I’ll hold in my heart until the day I die.

Not Alone

I just watched a video I came across on Facebook and I found myself doing a lot of reflecting. First, give it a watch:



In elementary school I was teased a lot. I was beaten. Even as a school patrol, on the main school corner with the police crossing guard, I was put in a headlock and pounded on the head repeatedly which left bruising. I had sand flicked in my eyes. I was chased down neighborhood streets fearing for my safety. I was dragged along the blacktop at recess. I was called albino for my fair complexion and hair. A speech impediment made me even more of a target. I was a student who adhered to the rules and these actions pushed me to fulfill the role of a tattle-tale which resulted in even more abuse.

I was anxious and worried, questioning even the most sincere acts of kindness in deep suspicion. I withdrew in fear of being judged, of having something else be fodder against me. At one point during a summer in middle school I was so anxious I no longer could pick up a phone or look out a window. Paired with the strong and confusing hormones at that time of life, --at hindsight--I made silly mistakes (what middle schooler doesn't?) that then felt like being cut down to nothing and even less. I was a bitter hole that sucks in others, friends, who were so generous and would eventually see no benefit in staying in that hole with me. I didn't want to pull them in and I felt terribly guilty about it. So guilty the rational of suicide came to mind. However irrational I knew I was, the emotion was there: I was exhausted of the cycle, of that toll I put on others, of always being beaten down. Ending my life in many ways made sense.

But I wanted to live.

I remember walking home one day from elementary school, passing the blacktop and looking over at some high schoolers playing basketball. A group of four or five guys carefree in shooting hoops. I found myself in envy of them when, suddenly, something clicked. I wanted to be like them, I wanted to get on that path and the only way for me to do that is to challenge myself. I needed to get out of this darkness, which I knew I could only do one step at a time.

It's now been over a decade since then and I'm still working on it. In fact, it wasn't until last year when I faced an election campaign in my organizing work that required full-time phone banking did I finally fully get over my anxiety of phones.

Ten years ago I pulled back that curtain at the window. I started to explore who I was and not let myself be written off by others. I started to enjoy life more, take a hold of opportunities head-on. In late middle school I went with People to People Student Ambassadors to Australia and New Zealand. In high school I worked two summer jobs with Hensel Phelps Construction Company on wedges 2-5 of the Pentagon Renovation Project. I was told at one point I was the youngest person to have clearance with the project. I was invited to speak to an educational conference with hundreds in attendance regarding my internships with the construction industry.

I grew my hair long for kicks my senior year, golden curls bounced around. I would find out years later it made me a bit of a legend. I became more passionate about my studies, particularly in the environment. I embraced some of my creativity and worked with animations and computer design. For my passion my teacher nominated me for a class art award at graduation which I received. Then I graduated high school and went to college at Virginia Tech.

I wound up at a statewide environmental youth conference and was amazed to find not only can I learn about environmental issues, but act on them. From planning a small tabling event on campus to a full day of action, my organizing skills grew over the years in college. Together with our community I was also faced with larger challenges, such as that of the shooting at Virginia Tech and having my previous blog become world-famous and quoted in numerous publications which I had to deal with (I just found a book on blogging that has a piece on me). From that experience I developed an appreciation of how the media works (and doesn't work with gross ethical violations) and just how important the support of a broad community is. The seed of sustainability-- a balance of community, environment and economy-- blossomed in my soul. By the next year I helped plan a large state-wide student conference at Virginia Tech with several hundred attendees. The year after that I ran for town council.

I found out about a program that develops the skills of environmental organizers, Green Corps. I applied and got in and soon found myself working on campaigns from protecting one of the strongest climate laws in the world to supporting family ranchers and stopping oil pipelines. I knocked on hundreds upon hundreds of doors over last summer, talking to people about protecting streams and health. Now I'm with the Sierra Club in Denver, Colorado, a place I always dreamed of being with an organization I always wished to work for. I may not be playing basketball on my elementary school's blacktop, but things have worked out great.

Sometimes I get too focused in what I am doing I forget the journey of where I've come from. The challenges I've overcome and still am dealing with-- my Dad passing earlier this year, for instance, or finding out I have Graves' Disease and deciding to have my thyroid surgically removed in 2009. When I begin to imagine where I might be in the next ten years, I realize anything can happen and the potential is limitless. But I know everything I've listed here, everything I've done, every step has been a challenge to overcome for me.

It is videos like what Jonah made that remind me of the path I've found myself on, and where I came from. This is a path that is not uncommon. There are a lot of Bryces and Jonahs out there, lost in the darkness and oppressed by people and shadows. Some of us don't make it out. Stepping out from under the oppression we find ourselves in is never easy. But you can learn more about it, why it happens and how you can personally manage it and then extend a hand to others because we are all on this journey together.

My boss for a Buddhist environmental non-profit I worked for once told me that we all must cross the same river but we get to choose the vessel we go in to get to the other shore. The waters can be turbulent, but we ride the same waves together.

Life is still far from perfect for me, but that's how life is. While I've made strides, I'm still not where I want to be in fully appreciating the day-to-day beauty of existence that is out there. But I'm working on it. One step at a time. And I have amazing friends across the country and beyond who are there for me.

Good luck on your journey, Jonah. You're going to do great and are already strides ahead of the game.