We are what we poop.
Compost is the most nutritious addition to soil, the reincarnation of nitrogen and carbon gives the next seed what it needs to grow. Our trash, our landfills, our junk food and some of our media could be compost, but instead are crap.
The cyclical nature of decomposition has been hijacked, and trash sits, never digested, never dissolved and never broken down. It paralyzes the growth of our cells, our ecosystem, and our minds. We are losing diversity left and right, genetic diversity in seeds and crops, language and culture. In 2007-2008 the Writers’ Strike to increase compensation in comparison to the studio’s large profits put television on a diet. Not high protein/low carbs, but junk food. Unfortunately our food systems has been running in the same direction for years. Isn’t Honey Boo Boo the human equivalent of a Hostess Ding Dong? The junk food diet is self indulgent, like Bravo’s lineup, but too often my reaction (and I still watch!) is disgust and shock: food poisoning to my brain.
Plastic landfills are a product of convenience, and our tolerance for instant gratification has peaked. Our bodies are revolting, we have the highest diagnoses of allergies and chronic illnesses like ulcerative colitis and it is now known that the best treatment is fecal transplant. We are literally rejecting what we can’t poop and need human compost!
“When you think about an apple, you also think about the opposite of an apple,” thanks Jaden.
Creative minds struggle and strive to find something new to say. Stories have been recycled for centuries. When one brilliant mind contributes to the collective psyche, the step after digestion is done in our cultural intestine, extracting nutritious perspectives, responses and debates. When the idea has been exhausted and it is time to set the burning man up in flames, is there something to feed the next seed?
Reduce, reuse, recycle: enrich our cultural soil, take the indigestible and find a new use for it, like Lisa Kudrow’s The Comeback. Don’t produce plastic that can only be left to sit in a landfill, produce something that can be the nitrogen of our conversation, because fads and trends thrive in our cultural psyche, and the nature of ‘buzzworthy’ is that consumers are worthy of healthy digestion, absorption of knowledge, and after 15 minutes of fame, crap isn’t just crap, it’s compost.