I am a second generation Los Angelean. I was born here at the beginning of the 80's, but grew up in a small town in Arizona. I moved back on my own accord, six years ago. I am a poor man, and more or less always have been. I work for food, and I work for simple pleasures, and have never required much of life, beyond my desires to be healthy and happy.
For most of these past six years, I have lived within the San Fernando Valley. A place that is allegedly incorporated into the greater Los Angeles area, but is clearly not Los Angeles. We are ultimately a desert. A well irrigated desert, but a desert, nonetheless. I can tell, because I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, in a location that was quite discernably desert. And so, like a child can sense its mother, I can feel the nature of this land, and what it is, when you strip away the development, the infastructure, the irrigation, and the civilization.
Yet, it is quite a different desert from my dry Arizona home. I can smell the ocean when I step outside. I live in a desert valley that is separated from the vast Pacific, only by one small range of the Santa Monica mountains.
The people of this valley are not people who believe they live in a desert. Desert people recognize the frailty of life. Not just the life of the desert, but their own lives. They recognize that one is connected to the other. Just as the succulent cactus, which expends its every biological resource into saving what little water it can gather from the soil (and then its remaining resources on discouraging would-be predators from consuming it, along with its nourishing water reserve), we make great effort to conserve the limited life-giving resources that the earth provides. Water is scarce, and mustn't be wasted. And so is our agriculture, which is limited by the water which we may feed it. Our shelter is vital to protect us from the searing desert heat, and the desolate cold of the uninsulated night. The people of the desert have reverence for the delicate fringe which life exists upon.
The people of this once desert valley are different. They are ones that believe they live in a vast metropolis of endless ameneties; A proverbial Mecca which yeilds the fruit of all wants and desires. We are a people of decadence, and we fail to honor our inherent connectedness to our place on the earth. There is not a consideration for the resources required to procure all the things we consume, be it food, water, clothing, or objects of our entertainment and desire. We consume without regard for the toll it takes on others, or the environment. Our hand meets the trash compactor without consideration for whether or not we have been wasteful with our resources. We dispose with impunity, because it is easier to do so, than to come up with methods for reusing our so-called "trash". We thrive on the convenience of "recycling", without recognizing the fact that it is inferior and comparitively wasteful in comparison to reducing the usage of things that are not required for our well-being and happiness. And so, it is without reverence for life that we exist. We waste and pollute our environment, but the true refuse of our existence is our spirit.
My life in this valley has been an awakening to this desolate spiritual existence. All the electrical devices plugged into my residence simply drain energy from the grid, and endlessly spill it out into the ether, whether or not I am using them. My faucets dump water that just goes straight into the drain, to join the polluted sewage that spills into the ocean. My food wastes meet the dumpster with no unique destination to become compost, and simply are piled into the collection of hazardous and non-decomposing synthetic wastes of modern civilization, to be buried and forgotten about for as many centuries as possible. My life has been a life of waste. This has been my equation to existence. My subconscious self-worth is as polluted as the soil I reside upon.
I have wished for a new awakening in my existence. An awakening to the true value of my life, and of all life. I wish to once again have reverence for the earth. I wish to be conscious of what I consume, of what I am, and of the fact that these two things are inherently connected.
I wish not to use my resources without a deliberate and meaningful intent. I wish not to be a manufacturer of polluted refuse, but a recycler of life. I find myself fighting an impossible battle on one front, but walking a delicate, slow, and empowering path on another.
I could talk to you about water, or plastic, or energy, or oil, or so many things that are a part of this life path I have embarked upon. But I will hold my tongue for now, in regards to so many topics, so that I may confess but one thing: I am a fig thief.
I steal figs, but not just figs. I steal oranges and lemons. I steal pomegranettes, peaches, apples, grapefruits, avocados, and anything else I can get my hands on. Do I steal them from the market? No! I steal them from you. I come to your property when you are not home. I walk through your alley and find your trees, full of fruit, which you do not pick. I hop your fences and fill my bags. You call me a thief because the man-made laws that all of us silently agree upon as reality dictate that these trees upon your property are yours to possess, grow, and harvest. But the law that exists in my heart dares call you the criminal, because the trees upon your so-called property remain unharvested, year after year, as rotted fruit from seasons past remain dessicated and dangling, while we import fruits of the very same nature across the oceans from Asia, South America, and Austrailia.
But allow me to digress for one moment to make my point clear. If you really cared about the fruits of your soil, I would probably not take them from you. I might come to your front door and ask you if I may share in your harvest. I would even pick them for you, only to take a few for myself. I would never raid your vegetable garden. I have as much reverence for you as you have for yourself. I am a thief only insomuch as you are a fool.
This is my confession. I will tell you the honest truth about what I steal from you, because I am not dishonored by my actions. I hope that it is clear to you that "thief" in this sense is a psuedo-honorary title that means only to mockingly suggest a myth-figure such as Robbin Hood. I steal from your decadent existence to feed myself and my friends, because we do not view the world in such a way as we have the resources to waste.
Fig season is near. The pomegranates are growing as well. The citrus are full and waiting to be plucked as we speak. There is much to harvest, and much to anticipate. This beautiful land bears fruit through all the seasons, and there is none who should hunger for such things here, nor should such things even find their way to our markets by way of trains and ships. If we all shared with one-another, as a community, there would be enough to go around. But until then, I will steal your fruit.
ft.
