One day I was riding the underground and the car I stepped into was totally littered by cardboard advertising posters pulled down and ripped to pieces on the floor. It was ugly and disturbed my sense of beauty, my peacefulness. As I rode my mind filled with accusations: who were these 'youths' (for that's who I thought had done it), why did they do this? Then came thoughts like, they should have people going around keeping things picked up and neat. And finally the thought, I could pick this up right now! Right here my mind went into fear and confusion: what would the other passengers think? I don't like being the centre of attention, I don't want to have to talk to anybody or explain why I am doing this.
A station passed by and then another, the pressure building because I had only two more stations to go. I was on the knife-edge of decision: I could do it, or not. I knew I would feel happier if I did it, and yet I was afraid. Then suddenly I reached down and picked up the piece under my feet, and then the piece under the young man across from me. Only he saw me. Next I reached out into the aisle and took up a big piece or two within reach.
Now it was clean around me from my 15 seconds of work, did I dare do more? Taking a deep breath I grabbed my courage and began moving down the car picking up from the floor, saying to people who had their feet on scraps of the cardboard, excuse me, and going on. I went as quickly as possible because I was embarrassed, but my courage did not fail: I knew that this action was making the world a little more beautiful, in a very different way than if I had only complained.
This 'always picking up' has become a theme with me - my son knows it well. And if he smiles at me a little, I don't mind - I laugh at myself too, thinking I must have made a lot of messes in some previous life, to be doing so much cleaning up now!
I have broadened it to include the whole of the world and how my living affects other people and other lives. Today we all know that our way of living is the culprit, not some factory owner or two. I therefore think about things as I buy them: where did this come from, how was it made - can I choose something better?
As for chemicals such as washing up liquid and laundry detergent, I mostly try to just use less, thinking that the less chemicals in the water, the better for both the plants, the bugs and for me. In the case of food, I think through the whole chain of production, all the steps from farmer to me. I often choose ecologically grown food, I make my own soups and sauces from raw vegetable to save on a factory's heat and smoke, and I buy local bread to save on long distance trucking. In the case of gasoline and oil, I try to use the car with awareness, for when I really need it, and I am constantly inventing new ways to cut my use of heating and electricity at home.
These are all spontaneous choices when I first make them, like when I picked up the first scrap of paper under my foot on the underground, but they become habits after a while, if they feel right and if they work. I am an experimentalist, if something doesn't work, I give it up and look for something else that does.
Archie Duncanson, Örnstigen 9, 18350 Täby, Sweden (tel 468 768 6320).
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