4/16, Compassion, and Intersectionality

4/16 is a deeply engraved date in the Virginia Tech Community, like 9/11 was for the United States and world.  Except instead of thinking it as 4/16, as those who were in our community do, the world calls what the community in Blacksburg, Virginia experienced that horrid day in 2007 as the "Virginia Tech Massacre."

A student walks to the candlelight vigil being held on the evening of April 17th, 2007. (Credit: Bryce Carter)

The Virginia Tech community begins to gather to commemorate the 1st anniversary of the shooting in 2008. (Credit: Bryce Carter)

This time of year I take a moment to pause and remember the lives lost, reflect upon the torment our community went through--both with the act itself and the media onslaught after, and the comfort provided by the overwhelming support from around the world.  I've written enough about those stories over these years. 

This year, I'm now writing to ask myself and to challenge my friends and former classmates after eight years: How have we grown since 4/16, and how have we lived for 33*?

(Credit: Bryce Carter)

Here are two points I found myself reflecting on:

• I strive for compassion because of what our community recognized in its peril - * Let me note I am sincerely sorry to those who read this and are offended by recognizing the shooter as a causality of the day, but he was in fact within our community.  I don't intend to highlight him over the friends and family taken from us, but to express the tragedy of what we lost encompasses him as an individual as well. In an act of deep and resolute compassion, the first several days the community itself put out 33 temporary Hokie Stones before the politics got complicated and his was removed and the slogan "Live for 32" was embraced.  The fact his stone existed, even temporarily, is a level of compassion and forgiveness I feel I must recognize, constantly strive for, and am inspired by today.
  
  

  

  A white rose with a black ribbon was placed on the dorm signage in which the shooter had lived. (Credit: Bryce Carter)

  

  The shooter, for the first few days after the tragedy, was included in the ad hoc memorial. (Credit: Bryce Carter)

• I strive every day for solutions to promote community and intersectionality -
  For anyone who knows me, the pursuit of triple-bottom-line sustainability (balancing equality, environment, and economy) for our communities is deeply in my heart and who I am.  I believe the more sustainable a community, the naturally more resilient and interconnected it is.
  
  Blacksburg's slogan is "A Special Place," and I wholeheartedly agree (enough that I even ran for Town Council in 2009).  And after traveling the country in the years that followed, I realize Blacksburg is special because it is a close, generally open-minded community where you will run regularly into friends.  Every time I biked somewhere I would find myself stopping to talk to someone in the community on the street.  As a small university town in concept and design, Blacksburg naturally promotes intersectionality and in turn, promotes growing commonalities.
  
  When I reflect upon 4/16, I think about how our community came together and supported each other from the base of resiliency we naturally already had.  As one might expect from those first few weeks, months, and years, I saw the blinding resilience and camaraderie we shared right after the tragedy fade more with every graduation (see my letter to the editor I wrote senior year).
  
  I believe creating intersections is key to creating resilience, because diverse people and communities find themselves interacting and building appreciation for their commonalities.  This is why over the years since then, I've devoted myself to promote the intersections of sustainability at every opportunity with the goal of better balanced, healthier communities for all.  

Every year on campus the day before the anniversary, I brought friends together to offer "Free Hugs."  My rationale: why do we need a tragedy to embrace our community? (Credit: Bryce Carter)

Fast forward to today: the Sierra Club and NAACP have partnered on a series of Healing Hikes to not only embrace the healing power of nature, but also promote intersectionality between our two groups. (Credit: Bryce Carter)

How do you live for 33?

Falling Apart at the Seams: The Gaping Wound of Inequality

A recent Pew Research study demonstrates the increasing political divide in the US.

I recently watched the documentary Inequality for All with Katie and her mother over the holidays.  I was hesitant because from Food, Inc. to Inconvenient Truth, social documentaries usually leave me in a depressed slump.  Yet, I found myself surprised and inspired by Inequality for All because of it's clear-cut economic analysis and piecing-together the complicated story of income inequality.  The bottom line take-away I had: 99% of us are getting paid less to do more and this gap started in the 1970s and has dramatically worsened since causing negative consequences far and wide.

Let me restate this: to do an honest day's work, the premise of the post-World War II "American Dream" branding, now gets you less today than it did in the 1970s.  Race and gender, sadly, still play a significant factor for income disparity on top of this, but it is ultimately class from the poorest to even the middle-upper class wealthy which unites us in a systematic depletion of our money and time.  Thanks to deregulation the wealth is gushing upward to the wealthiest citizens, who are often using it make it easier to retain even more wealth (see the Koch brothers as a classic example).

This restriction on available resources for the rest of us result in growing tensions.  If you have to work longer hours to feed your family, how will you find the time or money to get civically engaged?  Not just with educated voting, but education in general, engaging with NGOs, or even community events?  Or even just the time to have interact with your neighbors beyond an occasional hello?

When opportunities of intersectionality within one's own community become more limited, they aren't exposed to new or challenging ideas.  The ability to take the time to understand detailed viewpoints become withered down to Slate A or Opinion B.  Once in this boxed frame of reference, one can easily lose sight of the overwhelming commonalities of those around them.  Then, especially if one is the subject of countless generations of oppression for their skin color or gender or class and within this system of ever-restricting opportunities, how can anyone learn to trust each other outside their innermost circles?  Those who aren't in one's 'category' become scarier, and scapegoating and stereotyping becomes easy from all angles.  Neighbors can then become the enemy.

I am reminded of a story of the murder of a Canadian filmmaker working for the U.S. Department of Commerce during President Johnson's War on Poverty, putting a sharp focus on impoverished Appalachia (watch from 35:25).  Hugh O'Connor was filming his last shot for the day of a father play with his son on the front porch after a day in the coal mines, when the company housing owner rushed up with a gun and demanded he leave.  On his way to the car, O'Connor was shot and killed.  The case went to the courts in which the journey of the local community felt threatened and even ridiculed by all of the attention from the War on Poverty, and thus gave a light sentence for O'Connor's murderer.

Yes, police brutality is real and dangerous.  Racism is very much alive and well-- Ferguson is a household name now on these points, whatever the perspective.  Sexism is still very much here, too, and equal pay between genders still isn't law in 2015.  To me, these are very grave issues often putting blame and working to undercut one another within our communities.  Yet they all are intertwined with the most deadly of all-- the systematic undermining of our ability to meet our own needs for the benefit of a very manipulative few.  Income inequality is our gaping, gushing wound, pulling us further and further apart from our own humanity.  Addressing anything but this inequality first is just toying with band aids.


--Coming up, I will explore the ongoing housing and affordability crisis in Denver.--

Sustainable Cities, Google, and the NSA: The Role of Metadata

A screen capture of Google's geo-mapping of my cell phone metadata.

With an uncertain sigh, I clicked the button to activate my Google tracking on my cell phone.  I wanted to see how accurate the data Google accumulates is, see what it says about me, consider how the internet Timelords might use it (for better or worse), and reflect on the larger role my information has in benefiting our society.

Adjacent is a screen cap of the information Google accumulates, mine being just one user for one day out of  millions using their Android systems.  It's a telling story of an atypical day: I grabbed breakfast with my supervisor in Golden, took some comp time and did a flight lesson primarily practicing runway landings at Centennial Airport, headed to the office for a few hours downtown, and then headed to small groups at my Unitarian church.  Anyone with this data could likely fill in the gaps through gleaning more metadata from Facebook, online purchases, texts, and G-Mail (all pieces in this case Google could have access to).  The image of my daily adventure is just the surface of this data iceberg which runs deep into the cold abyss. 


Ever wonder how Google Maps Traffic gets so specific, with red lines guaranteeing delays as you rush around town for last-minute holiday shopping?  Google's data tracking of the geolocation of my phone goes into their servers, a coded algorithm interprets the data to something like: "Bryce's phone is traveling faster than a brisk walk along roads, therefore he is likely driving," and it's collected as just one sampling of many dozens along those same routes.  Put those routes together, and you get an average speed of traffic.  If it's below the average, that's where those pesky yellow and red lines come into play.

Google Map's Traffic Map for the Denver region.

Google's data gleaning and analysis excites me because the change I want to see is how we work toward making our communities more sustainable.  Cherry Creek (bottom right in the above image) is bludgeoned with holiday shoppers-- so why not find out where they're coming from and explore alternative transportation options from temporary shuttles to free light rail passes?  For longer term thinking-- ask why are people commuting across the city there?  Who are the winners and losers in these scenarios, and how does this access reflect upon race and class for our city?  What types of development could we focus on to provide better balance to the city?  Information is power, and power can create change.  This data is important for making our communities healthier.

Years ago I had a conversation with a man who said he was a contractor for the government, working with information technology.  I offered he worked around building information collection and analysis algorithms for developing individual profiles to determine potential high-risk individuals for national security.  His mouth was agape as I smiled and said, if all the companies are already doing it, I'm sure the federal government is playing catch up.  Companies like Google are easy to pick on, but there are countless others in this game working toward similar goals.  PRISM, Snowden, and NSA became household names since then as cries of accountability continue, but I found myself shrugging it off because they're not the ones I'm worried about.

Welcome to the Journey

The whole world is burning.

Everyday it’s hard not to delve into the news: horrors of murder and mass murder, police brutality, environmental devastation and rampant green-washing, class struggles, racial discrimination, imbalanced governance, and oh so many other examples of injustice swirling about us.  But I would be remiss to go there right away.

This is what world is often portrayed as by the media. 

I don’t believe that vision.

I’ve learned even in the furthest corners of the darkest days there are rays of light to behold.  Where there’s imbalance, there’s a constant struggle to rebalance, collaborate, and appreciate what is and work for what can be.  There’s a struggle for greater health and sustainability of our planet and society, this bringing joy and happiness within interconnected communities across the world.

The challenges of humanity are just a portion of a greater, remarkable picture.  Life, a relentless struggle of adaptation for achieving a balance in the chaos of the cosmos, has borne us.  In return, we’ve destabilized the well-tuned processes and resiliency of life itself as our thin atmosphere warms and countless species disappear forever. 

It’s easy to be overwhelmed with the negative news of the status of the world and society.  I often am as I feel my voice, if I speak out, gets drowned.  But, I remember in the days after dozens of fellow students were murdered on my campus and a temporary memorial was set up on campus to commemorate each life lost; there laid one more stone for the shooter.  He shared this life, too.  Reflection amidst the deepest sorrow imaginable brought about an appreciation of his tormented spirit put to rest embodied in a simple blue-grey limestone block.   Even in the furthest corners of the darkest days there can be light.

Everywhere, every day, there are those rays.  Be it a friendly gesture like holding a door open, an act of lowering one’s carbon footprint, or a life fully committed to civil service without acknowledgement.  Those are the voices we need to hear and be empowered by, yet are being drowned out. 

I want to commit my voice here to finding, reflecting, and bringing together those rays of light.  I think we can drown the darkness, pull down the curtain and together reclaim our voices with renewed empowerment for the betterment of our society and world.  I want to seek out and explore the examples creating progress of a more sustainable world—balancing social equity, environmental balance, and yes—even the economy.  In this mindset, I hope to change our shared focus from the endless negatives to the constructive positives.

This piece is my premise for this blog, my lens of which I will listen, reflect, write, and act.  My goal is to write a piece at least every month, perhaps every two weeks.  I will be collaborating with an amazing individual, Katie, who has similar passions and is on a similar journey.  Together we’re going to share our voices, build off of each other, and likely offer sometimes contrasting views on similar topics.  I should also mention she’s my girlfriend (I’m such a lucky guy). 

I’m Bryce Carter and this is my voice.  Welcome to the journey.

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.