Is It Just Me?

I have been feeling a sense of urgency to set things right lately.  I attributed it to the big bad diagnoses.  I want to make sure I tell people things I want them to know and then let them go.  I want to pass on knowledge before I forget it all.  I want to check things off my bucket list.

But yesterday I watched a bit of news on TV - always a mistake - and I started to wonder if maybe I feel this urgency because the whole dang world is actually falling apart.

I just can't quite get my mind around all that's going on.  My country is bombing and warring indiscriminately, because. . . . . well, I near as I can actually figure it out, it all comes down to oil.  My government is attacking unarmed Native Americans on their sacred land, because of oil.  Great rivers all over the globe are being killed by oil spills and the oceans are full of floating plastic islands Oh, yeah, plastic.  A petroleum product.  Places, including Oklahoma, which once only worried about the occasional twister, now have daily earthquakes due to drilling and fracking.  There is no such thing as "normal" weather anymore, because our misuse of resources, primarily oil,  is screwing up the planet's natural protection.

Of course, I'm not the brightest bulb in the chandelier but I know a few common sense things.

1. Oil, which runs in the veins of Mother Earth, took millions of years to make and we are using it faster than it's being created.  We're going to run out.
2. People can't drink oil, but we can't live without clean water.  
3. If you're driving full speed toward a cliff, it would be wise to take your foot off the accelerator.

So why is it that we can be horrible people in order to pipe oil, but can't figure out how to get water to  places in drought and being burned by fires?  Why don't we have solar collectors on every house? How is it that 54% of my country's budget is spent on defense?  Our infant mortality rate is  6 per 1,000.  The UK's is 3.8 per 1,000 and Japan's rate is 2.1 per 1,000.  Huffington Post says 14% of my country's adults can't read.  After teaching in a public high school, I am not surprised.  

We have some serious problems and they aren't going away.

Still. . . .what are we spending our money on?  "Defense."  Actually, that's a very bad word for military spending.   And what really bothers me is that even if we changed that budget item to "Waring for oil," which would perhaps be more correct, I don't think anyone would give a damn.   

But what do we watch on TV?  We keep up with people who are famous for being famous.  The channels are covered in the glorification of violence and disgusting behavior.  We are addicted to the drama, I guess.  We're concerned about who loves whom to the point of hatred.  We abdicate our responsibility to think to organizations who tell us their god is right and everyone else's god is dangerous.  

Not to put too fine a point on it, but everyone is nuts.  So I ask you, what do we do?