Mulberry Place, tools of destruction, and boredom

by Chad Hellwinckel

When I moved to Knoxville in 1994 there were many scattered hobo camps in the green abandoned places along freeways and railroad tracks. These places were covered over with a thick growth of privet, honeysuckle, tree of heaven, mimosa, hackberry and grapevine. In the wet southeast it doesn’t take much time for trees and bushes to grow thick and tangled. But a quarter century later there are now few overgrown patches where hobos can camp. Since 1994 inventions in mowers, wackers, grinders, and herbicides have allowed the city to fairly cheaply keep down the growth. Hobos are now exposed and corralled under freeways. The technology of land control has gotten very good over the past 25 years. The wild places are few, there are less bugs and less critters.

Time passes and we tend to think that the larger world is probably ticking along as always. But the larger global ecosystem has experienced something similar to what I’ve noticed in Knoxville around me; More machines, better herbicides. This technology has been used worldwide, in cities and on farms alike. The rate at which technology can take down a forest has increased exponentially. Its cheap now to keep the undesirables down. The wild edges, the weedy flowers, have diminished quickly, and along with them the larger ecosystem of life and balance.

Time passes and things change. In 1980 China’s carbon emissions were half the U.S. By 2005 China had matched U.S. emissions. Today China emits twice as much carbon as the U.S. (but on a per capita basis, the average Chinese citizen still only emits less than half of the average American) The rest of the world is trying to attain the American standard. Yes you’ve heard it before, if the world attains the American standard, ecosystems will crash. No doubt about it.

Can we change the standard? Can we live in quality without the destroying machines and chemicals? Without the carbon emissions? Yes solar and wind and battery cars and local food will be part of our futures, but our world will not be nurtured without also lowering the flow, slowing down, using and doing less.

It will be nurtured to health by finding beauty in the wild places, in the uncontrolled existence around us, in letting go of the tools of control, in silence, in staying with the unknown.

Wait a bit longer,

feel your boredom,

accept your sorrow,

and see how the colors grow more vibrant.