Concrete Jungle
We all go through experiences that changes us. The experiences that transforms us the most are the ones we remember in greatest detail. In that moment, we are able to take a step back and revaluate where we are in our lives. Sometimes these changes in life allow us to learn things about ourselves that we never knew were there.
It was two years ago when I moved to, what most locals call, “the concrete jungle.” It was a complete change– coming from the quiet, slow-paced town of Lihue, Kauai, to the hustle and bustle of Oahu. I didn’t know what to expect when I moved here. I had a lot on my mind, and being in a relationship at the time, all I could think of was how we were going to get through this big change together.
Remembering the first day walking into my new room, the feelings that flooded me were unreal. I was in complete denial that this bare, white-walled, 12 by 14 feet room is what I would be calling “home” for the next couple of years. It had one window that stretched across from one end of the room to the other and came down from the ceiling to about one-fourth of the way down. The wood floors looked as if the person who put it together didn’t know what they were doing, because there were spaces between the boards. Even though I called it home, it didn’t feel like home. It was in dire need of a makeover. The first few weeks were rough. I had a hard time sleeping with all the thoughts of home flooding my head, which made me homesick. The screeching sound of ambulances passing by 2-3 times every other hour also played a huge factor in my insomnia. The one thing I can’t complain about is my view of the busy street of Piikoi. As I look down from my balcony, I see cars coming and going. To my left I see the mountains of Makiki. To my right it overlooks an elementary school that reminds me of my care-free days where all I worried about was cooties and ukus. In the far distance, between the buildings of Honolulu and Waikiki, I get a glimpse of Ala Moana beach. I also get my very own firework show that the Hilton Hawaiian Village put on every Friday night at 7:45pm. To some, it may not seem much, but when it gets to be around 6pm, the sun casts a beautiful ray over the city of Honolulu that takes your breath away.
I was walking down the street with my friend Laurel when I dropped my litter on the ground like I have always done in the past. Laurel went off on a tangent about how my polluting ruins the environment. I then proceeded to look around me and I saw the usual city:scape, cars, buildings, people, etc. I asked her what environment she was talking about in which case she did not have an answer. Don’t get me wrong, I respect the environment and I would never pollute in any wild growth area, but I really do not see the logic in not polluting on concrete. In fact, I think everybody should pollute, because I think if people realized how much they consumed instead of shipping it off out of sight so they didn’t have to see it, maybe we would start to realize how much trash we create and would not have to live with the out-of-sight out-of-mind complex to make ourselves feel better about how much waste we produce.
On garbage day, everybody puts out their plastic bags filled with waste to be taken away to a landfill, pushing it out of view in order to keep going about their day, appreciating how clean our city is, and “hey we can sleep better at night” knowing that we do not have to worry about living in a mess. Yet, we keep creating more landfills to keep up with how much we consume. The landfill once being a vital Eco-system has now been turned into a home for our greed; nonetheless we continue to make new places to accommodate our ravenous nature. But one day we will wake up to the suffocating smell of our debris, and it will be too late because we shall have already taken up the amount of precious land that we will no longer have.
I can imagine it now: the stench of waste filling my lungs as I walk down my “beautiful” city streets; the concrete so clean; people wearing gas masks, because all the garbage on the outside of the city has ruined the soil; most trees dead, not having been able to survive the acidity. I can see oxygen booths, and water that costs twenty-five dollars a bottle because the garbage has seeped into most of the world’s water supply making it poisonous to drink. Well, at least we have garbage cans on almost every street corner because, hey, we can put it in our landfills which takes up approximately seventy five percent of our world’s space, and at least we can still go to our fast food restaurants where every item is packaged for our convenience. Afterall, convenience is what matters, right?
I would like to know when we are going to realize that our greed is going to be the leading cause of our demise, the leading factor of the extinction of the human race. It is time for the evolution of the mind, as it has happened many times before, to ensure our survival. It is time that we make it blatantly evident that the insatiable appetite for our monopolizing behaviour must be filled. I strongly believe that it will only come about by living in our own filth.
Now, at the end of it all, what would you rather have? A concrete jungle, or a green one?
