I’ve been putting off writing this blog post because every time I start to think about ideas, I get caught up in the overwhelming complexity of everything we’ve talked about in class. I can’t solve one problem until this other thing gets changed, which won’t change unless these societal values change, and those aren’t going anywhere unless this other thing happens… forever. In another class, we referred to this type of problem as a “wicked problem” – characterized by the involvement of many different stakeholders as well as the fact that solving any single aspect of the problem ultimately results in the creation of one or many other problems. As one author wrote, these problems aren’t ever finished – work simply stops due to exhaustion, frustration, lack of resources, or simply boredom.

And so often, that’s how it feels to be someone heavily invested in issues surrounding climate change, inequality, prejudice, or discrimination. In my mere 20 years of existence, I have seen so few victories – and so, so many failures – on the part of politicians, businesses, and individuals in the face of dire threats to our planet and our society. In many ways, it has become a spiral downward, with each new challenge building on the divisions and problems introduced by the last.

Just in my lifetime, I’ve seen the aftermath of the Gulf Wars turn into 9/11 turn into the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turn into more terrorist attacks turn into growing hatred and discrimination towards Muslims turn into white supremacy turn into two different narratives about the world encouraged by media and the Internet and our own stubborn unwillingness to change — and to what end? What lives have been saved? What beauty has been created out of this cycle of destruction and blind hatred? Have we really created a better world for anyone but those who profit from war?

And climate change – with a body count far less visible and root causes far more entrenched in our livelihoods and cultural identity – can at times feel like the cherry on top of a diseased, incurably mangled sundae. Our society seems incapable of coming together and agreeing on the simplest subjects – Nazis are bad, children’s lives are more important than guns, women and black people should be treated equally to white men – so how on earth are we going to do something about a problem that nobody can see and that will affect our poorest, most vulnerable brothers and sisters first?

I really, really hope that this sinking, hopeless feeling will pass and I’ll start to feel like our problems aren’t so impossible again. Maybe I’m just feeling this way because of the shooting in Florida, which has been in the back of my head ever since I saw the news alert, a constant reminder of the hundreds of lives that we have lost, mourned, and forgotten over the years in our neverending cycle of gun violence in America. Maybe this is just a manifestation of a common pattern in the mental health of environmental scientists (or the effects of climate change itself on the brain – once again, all problems are connected.)

In class, we discussed how to live “well or justly” in a world of different perspectives, and our of habitual optimism, I postulated that we should look for our shared values as a society and build upon those foundations. If we can agree on empathy, generosity, patience, peace, accountability, honesty, and cooperation, maybe we can remake ourselves into a civilization that puts its money where its mouth is. The way to begin to do this, I suggested, is through rethinking how we educate our children. Representation, celebration, and understanding of diversity and differences; thoughtful discussion of right, wrong, and the gray area between; questioning the status quo; encouraging creativity and autonomy rather than conformity and compliance — would this make a difference? Is it even possible?

All four of my grandparents were teachers, and in the room where I slept during visits, my grandmother had a poster of the famous poem, “Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten.” And as I think about that now, I have to agree. Humans are good at making things far more complicated than they have to be; we focus on extraneous detail, minute differences, specific nitpicking particulars, and we forget that we’re all only here on earth for a few decades – shouldn’t we focus on being kind and helpful while we’re here?

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All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
by Robert Fulghum
(Here’s a picture of the exact poster my grandparents have)

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don’t hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.