EW Letter of the Week

My understanding is that there are places in this country where not everything is about environmentalism. Eugene is not one of those places.

TRAGIC COMMENTARY

I recently attended the wonderful local Free Shakespeare in the Park's presentation of Romeo and Juliet. What really made this performance stand out was a line in the director's note, "With Romeo and Juliet we see what happens when people are unwilling to love their children more than they hate each other." I have not been able to let go of this thought and am finding it to be a tragic commentary on much of what is happening around the world today.

The most obvious connection here is war, civil war, war on terrorism, whatever — a practice in which a leader and the parents who support that leader are willing to send their children to die for hate, fear or greed.

My thoughts led me next to contemplate all of the other things that we are unwilling to love our children more than. How many choices do we make in our everyday lives, based on our short-sighted desire for convenience, or to save a few dollars today, or to keep up appearances that jeopardize the future of our species? Many of us who are in the position to know better and to do better (and here I readily admit my own lack of perfection!) make lifestyle choices that we know harm others — such as taking advantage of cheap labor or our well-documented continued reliance on carbon based fuels.

So, I send a plea out to all adults, since the children of others are still the future for all of us, to start to be willing to love our children more than we hate and fear others and more than we love our unsustainable lifestyles. It is the everyday choices we make that can protect our future generations from a tragic ending.

Jennifer Wyld, Eugene