I’ve been doing well with my anger management lately, much better than I’ve been doing in my attempt at putting out regular blogs. I haven’t punched, kicked, or cursed anything for a long time. I can play video games and listen to the Blue Jays on the radio and wait for buses—historically, my three biggest agitators—without freaking out when things go wrong. Hooray for me! It could be that I’m repressing, but I don’t think so. I just feel calmer, more in control of my emotions, more able to let things go. More patient. And I don’t feel like a blowup is one frustrating moment away, which is how I often felt in the past. So I’m not walking on eggshells all the time. Instead, I’m learning how to interpret events in a better way, learning not to take the frustrating events so seriously or personally. I am becoming the duck’s back, so to speak, and those frustrating events the water sliding off me. I almost want to say I’m getting on a roll, but I don’t want to let my guard down. I know that at any time my patience may be tried. But now I see those times, those frustrating events, as opportunities to hone my patience. Humans aren’t born patient. Just look at the peckish infant who screams until mother offers her tit. Honing patience requires practice, and this world offers many opportunities to practise patience. Yet in the last month or two, I’ve rarely even felt angry. The only times I can remember getting angry were the times when I saw people littering. For some reason this really bugs me. I have a tough enough time seeing the city’s streets and sidewalks dotted with discarded containers and wrappers and whatnot, but when I actually see people flagrantly littering, like for example opening a pack of cigarettes and dropping the cellophane wrapper on the ground, I just want to grab them and yell at them and break all their fingers. Maybe punch them in the nose. I want to tell them how inconsiderate and lazy and arrogant they’re being. I want to punish them. But I don’t have that right. So I find myself stuck in that frustrated space between what I see and how I want to respond (but know I can’t).
I have serious issues with littering. Besides the obvious aesthetic and environmental problems it creates, I’m also bothered by the fact that litter is a great form of free advertising. How many times have you been walking along the street and suddenly out of nowhere you think, Boy, I sure would love a Big Mac right about now. Chances are you’ve just passed a McDonald’s wrapper flattened into a prominent display on the pavement. I can see those corporate executives sitting around their giant rectangular varnished oak table in Conference Room B, rubbing their hands together in glee at the idea of their products’ branded packaging lying in the gutters and on the sides of the roads, tempting passersby with subliminal reminders of their products—advertising for which the company doesn’t have to pay an extra dime!
Researchers at Australia’s Monash University, interested in how much “free” advertising litter actually produces, recently collected a week’s worth of branded litter from a nearby park and laid it all out side by side. The presumably smelly collage of wrappers, bottles, cigarette butts, etc. measured 30m². To put this in financial perspective, a billboard that size would cost an estimated $32,000 annually. And that was just a week’s worth of litter collected from a small park in Australia. Imagine how much annual advertising savings are produced through the littering of branded packaging worldwide. Billions? Trillions? And how much of that is being spent by the companies on cleaning up the mess? A lot less, I’m sure. Like, one hundred percent less. At the very least, these companies who profit from litter should use some of those savings to help fund the clean-up. A more drastic—and satisfying for me—measure might be to fine companies for littered packaging that bears their logo. And then use the collected fines to fund the clean-up. Sure, I know, the companies aren’t the ones actually littering, so why penalize them? My answer to that is: Because they can afford to pay the fine. Though I’m sure in the long run such a tactic (i.e., fines for logo’d litter) would probably just lead to logoless packaging. Which maybe isn’t such a bad idea.
But getting back to the litterers, the end users of the product who carelessly discard the packaging: what is going through their brains? Do they figure their mommies will clean up after them? Or have they just never learned to take responsibility for their actions? I think nothing goes through their brains. It doesn’t take much to crumple the refuse and put it in a pocket until a trashcan is within reach. When I see someone littering in public, I wonder if they also litter in their own home. Maybe they do; maybe they drink their soda and toss the empty can on the floor, expecting someone else to pick it up. And maybe someone else does pick it up. Whatever. That’s their prerogative. As the saying goes, people can do whatever they want in their own home. But public spaces are everyone’s property—mine, yours, hers, his. Ours. So I take it personally when people litter in public, like as though they’re littering on my property. (I’m aware of the difference between my own exclusive private property and my shared-with-everyone public property, but in this case I find that difference insignificant.) I should probably work on this reaction of mine. Because such thoughts make me feel vindictive, make me want to go to the litterer’s house and throw stuff on their lawn. Or yell at them. Or assault them. But if I do those things, I’m merely indulging my feelings of anger—the very thing I’m trying to learn not to do. These moments, when I see litterers litter, are perfect times for me to practise patience. To take a deep breath and try to become the duck’s back. Or maybe wish their littering bothered me as little as it bothers them.
