something selfish and stupid this way comes?

Reading about the declining bird species, the lost bees, and the war (pick one; no link required) has me in a mood.

Oh, no, Polly Anna. Not a good one. The mood comes from feeling completely at a loss as to what, if anything, I can DO about it and being certain that I should.

I could donate $100, maybe even $200, dollars to someone who is devoting the majority of their time to doing something about it. Would that help? Does anyone know how to help the bees find their way home? Can someone stop us from developing every spare inch of this planet so that the little bob-whites can have babies at the same rate that a Westlake soccermom can? Can anyone stop the war(s)?

I start thinking about this shit and first I start to feel heavy and trapped, my brain gets foggy(er), my vocabulary shrinks, and eventually I begin to inventory my own possessions and to mentally enter the bunker.

"That lamp? It's mine. I have 2 lbs of rice. I have $489 in my savings account. I own 12 pairs of shoes. When the shit really hits the fan, I'll need those shoes. Maybe I should go get some jeans while I still can. I should have reserves of cash. I need a gun."

As soon as I get to the gun, I switch to Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo, only I'm riding the shame spiral on my way to hell in a handbasket.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Jeans? Reserves of cash? There are little kid prostitutes in Africa who eat nothing but dick all day so their parents can buy drugs for AIDS. What you need to do is get your lazy ass involved, concerned, and active. You need to write letters. You need to stop this foolish blogging, quit your pointless, soul-less job, sell your Tivo and move to fucking Africa, you PIECE OF PAMPERED SHIT!"

So, I'm stuck in the safe, established neighborhood located between fear and self-loathing. And guess what? I will probably buy property here, and if the property tax keeps rising I will probably suck dick for a living to pay it. Because, I'll let you in on a little secret about me ... I don't want to move to Africa to save the world. Or I do, but I'd like to do it Jolie-style. I'd like to make sacrifices, but still be able to fly home to air conditioning and Wild Copper-River Salmon.

I saw Constant Gardener. Africa looks like a beautiful, amazing place. It is also looks like it is full of war, disease, famine, politics, desperation and pain. It makes me long to taste it for a minute - believing that it is raw and real in a way that my UnitedStatesian, middle-class existence will never be. But something holds me back from ever stepping over the line to be the person who does something truly unexpected or important. What is it?

If I was just selfish or stupid, like so many UnitedStatesians, like our president for example, or Jessica Simpson (I don't know that she is selfish, but it does seem like an actual deer caught in the headlights could beat her at chess), I bet I wouldn't care. Unfortunately, I'm generous and selfish and intermittently intelligent, and that adds up to a life of self-scrutiny and disappointment.

Or does it?

I don't want to go into this too much right now, but the shrink I used to see said a few wise things. She said them over and over again -- I'm not sure if that was purposeful or because she, too, had limits -- and some of them stuck with me. One was that all of us humans have the capacity for the full range of human behavior. Every one of us, under the right conditions, could be a Martin Luther King, a Jeffrey Dahmer, or a Linda Johnson (Linda Johnson is an unknown 40-something receptionist with 2 kids, who loves cats, votes republican because they believe in God, reads romance novels, and will die alone never having left her home-state when she's 75, more from boredom and loneliness than pathology).

The point of that is that I could change. I could start being more of a humming being. That's what my mom said she wanted to be (before she forgot and blew out her brains*). I guess I always thought that meant someone who vibrates with life. Someone engaged. Someone who has found their niche or niches (bitches) and who fully encompasses that space until she burns out (not fade away). Someone who leaves a mark, and not a bruise, more like a lipstick smear, an engraving, or a blood-sweat-or-cum stain.

*P.S. A sign of my emotional growth is that I almost left out the suicide-aside.