what if you're wrong?

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What if Don isn't a crack pot? What if he's right? And what if he loves this country and this planet at least as much, if not more than, you, with the sacrifices he makes?

What if he's not crazy? What if he sees how individual choices contribute to or detract from the living standards of us all?

It takes absolutely no courage, creativity or compassion to dress, drive, eat, over consume and abuse as the herd does.

It's easy to drive a car to a mall or a wal*mart and go into debt for cheap, plastic crap, made of petrochemicals, which will break and be tossed into the landfills within a month.

See, I see your trash. I see upon what you waste your money! I see how you think trinkets will make you feel better about the spiritual deprivation you really feel.

I see the level of addiction to consumption. I see merchandise, still in the packaging, still with price tags, never used.

I see the wasted water, rolling through the gutters, while you whine over the Silvery Minnow, the canary in the coal mine, that's telling us our river is DYING!

I see the rudeness and cruelty you use to control and manipulate each other and which you heap upon me for being "different."

I'm not saying people shouldn't work or pay taxes or any of that. Your taxes pay for the broken, cracked sidewalks, with no accessibility curb cuts, over which I stumble. And I do thank you. I thank myself, too. I have always paid taxes -- in this state, even on FOOD!

We each have something to contribute. Don makes a great contribution, just by living his simple, healthy life.

He's not telling you to live as he is; he's simply telling you how he lives, and why. He's not judging you.

You're judging yourselves, comparing your lives to him!

And I think you feel guilty. And I think THAT's why you lash out at him! You KNOW he's right, at least about some of what he says and does.

They crucified Jesus for the same reason, you know.

But Don's not judging you; he's living by his ethics and morals. He just has the courage to speak out about that.

Why do you want him to shut up? So you won't have to look at your gluttony? So you won't have to look at the spiritual and psychological damage that drives you to cover up and compensate? So you can dream your delusion of grandeur, in peace, without reminders that what you're believing is a lie that's killing all of us?

Why can't you just let him live his life in peace? Why do you threaten to kill him? Why do you accuse him of the weirdest motives? Because, if you were in his shoes, those would be YOUR motives?

Let him be. He's not hurting you. In fact, he's helping all of us!

No, you DON'T have to live like Don. But, if we each shaved even a LITTLE off our over consumption and nest-soiling, we might make things a little better, instead of a lot worse.

Our grandchildren will have to live in the filth we're leaving behind!

The Lysol you're using today will be your grandchild's filth!

Is that SO HARD to comprehend?