Some things are still black & white

As I have gotten older, I have heard many, many, many people say: "there is no black and white anymore, everything is just shades of grey" and no, I don't mean the poorly written main stream vanilla erotica book. Is that the way of it...have we gotten to the point where we have become so accustomed to compromising that everything is a negotiation, even the way we feel? Is nothing truly right and wrong anymore?

I've questioned that a lot lately — the way I feel now about subjects that I felt so passionate about as a child, teenager, and young adult. Before the "art of compromise" insinuated itself so artfully in to my lexicon and thought processes that I scarcely remember a time when it wasn't there. But now I am trying to remember what that passion felt like. What it felt like to feel something so deeply and whole heartedly that I knew I could change the world all by myself. 

Now I can hear some people saying, "Well, yes. Black and white is easy..and that was the ignorance and cockiness of youth, now you have grown up and learned how the real world operates." Yep, I have. And it sucks. It sucks because as we grow and learn how the real world works, the passion is replaced by compromise so we all get along homogeneously; and the earnest drive is replaced by responsibilities of family & home and of compromise again so we can keep the materials things necessary for comfort in this current world, and the, and the, ad infinitum...we forget. We forget the passion, hope, and knowledge that we had...at least I did. 

While I think some compromise is necessary, I think I've let it consume my life. I let the pendulum swing too far in one direction, and that's not right. What has this got to do with visiting the natural places in the world you may ask if you gotten this far in to the entry? Quite a lot for this author. 

It has made me question about why I haven't spoken up on certain issues in certain forums, mostly environmental, but personal too. I had become so accustomed to listening to all of the BS from every side that I neglected to hold on to my point of view and instead, tiredly with a desire for everyone to get along, compromised.

Compromise has its place at the table when wars or strikes are the issue - you get what I mean. It's not an evil word or idea. But should it have a place when we speak of protecting the environment...which has an intrinsic value all its own? Do we use comprise as an acceptable course of action when our national parks, where nothing is supposed to be removed, become the latest fount of oil for our ever dependent society? Are we ok with logging the last vestiges of the old growth forests because it is cheaper to do so than recycling paper - the compromise here being cheaper paper due to the lower cost?

I don't think so. I think I'm going to let the pendulum go and find its balance... because I do believe some things are still black and white and shouldn't be compromised.