litter

I had an epiphany earlier today about litter, about the significance of putting trash in a garbage can. Sesame Street taught me the evils of littering at a very young age, about the evil of being a litter bug. What i realized earlier today is that we are disgustingly self congratulatory about putting trash in garbage cans, that that, in fact, is just displaced litter. In a word, EVERYTHING WE THROW AWAY IS LITTER. IF IT ISN'T RECYCLED THEN IT WILL GO SIT SOMEPLACE FAR AWAY AND BE LITTER THERE. WE HAVE TO STOP THROWING THINGS AWAY.

it would actually be great if there weren't any trash cans, if we had to confront the disgustingness of all the stuff we throw out right on our sidewalks. we can tolerate it because all that trash is spirited away, but what would really be right would be for us to confront that, to face the fact that IT'S ALL LITTER in the flesh.

I'm sure we could continue doing this for decades, centuries to come, the world is awfully big. But it's a terrifying thing to realize that you are contributing to that dumping with everything you throw out, and that throwing something out is part of that happy magic, like the flushing of toilets, that makes us believe we are not constantly piling up shit that isn't being dealt with elsewhere anymore than we are "dealing" with it here.

We need to take the righteousness out of putting something in a garbage can and replace it with the terrifying fact that that garbage can is just going to be dumped out someplace else.