Beautiful forest trails run circumnavigous throughout parks near my home. They forge through meadows and across rivers, alongside gorges and past
ravines.
They snake up and down undulating terrain rife with emerald-green foliage and thick-ancient trees. They slither along a wide stream whose clear water
runs flush with darting minnows.
That park is beautiful place to walk, to run, to wade, to swim--and always to relax.
But invariably I'll find things spoiling the view.
Often I'll find someone left the branches of a shrub littered with old candy wrappers. Sometimes I stumble across the remnants left by someone who
used a proud tree as a holster for his empty latte cup.
And inevitably I'll find refuse scattered upon the very ground surrounding the copious number of trash cans freely available for all--where the people
guilty of creating that mess obviously made a halfhearted attempt at discarding waste only to give up after missing the container.
Regardless what I find littering the ground or despoiling the scenery along my walks, I pick it up and take it to the nearest trash can. The only
thing I won't touch are cigarette butts and discarded band-aids. And that collection I perform for a very simple reason:
We all have joint custody of this planet. Ergo we all have a responsibility towards keeping it clean as possible.
So the candy wrappers I collect in my pockets. The latte cup I carry in my hand. The garbage surrounding the trash receptacles I dutifully pick up.
And the park I always work towards leaving prettier than before I arrived.
Am I a saint for doing that? Of course not.
Am I anything special? Not really, no.
What I am is concerned about my world and my environment. So what I try to do is put my time and energy into helping do one small part towards
beautifying this world.
And through my days, weeks, months, years of performing that small role in helping keep our planet pretty, I reflected deep on the actual metaphysics
behind those actions.
I contemplated the roles of all actors in that equation.
And what I realized was alarming.
The people leaving that garbage in the park are probably decent human beings in aggregate. They're probably fairly responsible in most things, and
essentially good towards their family and friends.
But the second they acted in favor of laziness rather than cleaning up behind themselves, they became something else. They devolved into a form they
probably never considered or intended:
They became energetic vampires.
By making a mess than leaving it for someone else, they did something worse than make their world an uglier place. They performed an inevitable act of
vampirism upon another human being--because instead of cleaning up their own mess, they ensured someone else would need devote time and energy towards
straightening up that rubbish they left behind.
They made another stranger put forth the effort towards fixing the problem they caused. They forced another unrelated party into taking on the burden
of that thoughtless act.
So littering is really more than an act of carelessness. It's an act of theft.
You're stealing biological resources from the person who cleans up that mess--for that person then needs devote mental and physical attention towards
rectifying that problem.
That's energetic vampirism. And those bloodsucking acts extend further than leaving garbage on the streets or in the park. They happen all the
time:
Have you ever worked on a project with someone who constantly slacked and made others support the brunt of their carelessness?
Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who constantly made you foot all the bills and handle all the problems?
Have you ever had a roommate who constantly left dishes in the sink or stuff laying around the house?
All of these are acts of energetic vampirism. And all of these things are traits we should search out and eliminate in ourselves.
Take a few minutes and think about your own actions. Really analyze yourself in detail.
Have you ever been guilty or sloughing your work off on another? Have you ever foisted off unwanted responsibilities on a friend, a family member, or
perhaps a complete stranger?
Vampires are real, and at some point we've all acted that part--because we've all grown lazy in our efforts and forced another to compensate for our
failings.
But once you become aware of the problem--once you grow cognizant that every act of laziness and sloth is really a theft stealing the time and energy
of another--the burden falls unto you to change.
Do everything in your power to cease being an energetic vampire. Do everything within reason to carry your own weight and support your own burdens
through life.
And please--if you find yourself with a ton of extra energy from a huge dose of caffeine--use some of it to carry your empty cup another mile or two
until you find a trash can.
We're all sharing this pretty garden planet together. We all have joint custody of this world in common.
And nothing in our lease agreement gives us a right to leave our property littered with filth.
edit on 30-8-2015 by Trachel because: (no reason given)