In "Green Hills, Grey Skies: Reflections on Climate Conundrums," I explore the puzzling disconnect between our knowledge about climate change and our actions, leveraging the ancient Greek concept of 'akrasia.' I also delve into the Jevons Paradox, which indicates that increases in resource efficiency may paradoxically lead to greater consumption. My suggestion is to infuse our climate change strategy with 'metis'—a form of wisdom and cunning from Greek mythology—in order to reframe our relationship with both the environment and technology, recognizing our roles as part of these intricate systems, rather than their controllers.

Please note: All views expressed in this piece are my own.

I’m waiting to board an airplane, which is something I do a lot. This morning, I’m standing in a suspiciously bulbous line where nobody seems to be asking, “Why are we hurrying to wait on the runway?”

Maybe it’s perceived scarcity, wanting a spot in the overhead compartment.

Maybe it’s a way to signal status, being the first on the plane.

Maybe it’s internalized obedience, being in line, following orders.

II.

The core claim of Existentialism is that “existence precedes essence.” In other words, we come into this world (birth), and at some point thereafter we have to figure out what to make of it (life). This is a reversal of most previous philosophical viewpoints, wherein essence (life, vis-a-vis, the soul) precedes existence (birth) and, in most cases, continues even once our existence ends.

This is an important reversal. As far as three-word phrases go, “existence precedes essence” may describe the modern world better than any other. We live in times where the majority view is moral relativism—meaning is made by each of us. We exist; we decide what matters. Not just bodily: Our online profiles, avatars, and yes, even our blogs, exist.

At some point thereafter we must decide what to do with them.

III.

Camus wrote that the only true Philosophical question is whether or not we should commit suicide. He ultimately answers ‘no’, and in doing so, articulates an important concept: That of the absurd.

To Camus, the absurd describes the futility of searching for meaning in a universe devoid of it. It is the conflict between our desire for meaning, as well as order and happiness, and the natural universe's refusal to provide it. As such, we persist in whatever constellations of meaning we create for ourselves, even as our actions consistently fall short of our ideals.

In the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus illustrates the absurd through the image of Sisyphus pushing his boulder uphill only for it to roll back down, again and again and again. To Camus, this is just life. It’s all we have and therefore our best recourse is to imagine Sisyphus happy.

IV.

The concept of the sublime is much older than that of the absurd. The first recorded mention of it is from the 1st century AD, ascribed to Longinus. He described the greatness of certain rhetoric, but more generally, the sublime refers to incomprehensible grandeur as a quality writ large, be it in speech, thought, action, aesthetics, or something else.

In the 19th century, Romantic artists popularized the sublime through artwork depicting the epic vastness of nature. Clouded mountaintops and sprawling seas that we could explore but never fully know.

That the sublime can never be fully known is crucial. All divine things are like this. The extra-regular would cease to be such if we could comprehend it fully. Similarly, we would cease to exist as regular beings if we could transcend into comprehension of the extra-regular. We’d be Prophets. Or at the very least Enlightened.

The theologian Frederick Buchner put it like this: “without destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me.”

I board eventually. Wheels up, hurtling through space in a long metal tube, wheels down. 8am in Boston. Deplane. Large black coffee. Zoom call. Car rental. The whole chain of incongruous events that constitutes travel.

As I begin the drive up I89, headed to a conference in Hanover, NH, the traffic is heavy. But with each passing exit, more road stretches unencumbered to a horizon that doesn’t get any closer. An hour in, there’s a break in work calls, so I take an exit, following signs that deposit me on the shoulder of a rolling dirt road.

The sun is fully risen, beating down overhead, hot for this far north. I strip off my shirt, and, kicking up dust, do a few lackadaisical warm up skips that feel particularly silly done in the private of this rural landscape.

I begin to jog under the unflinchingly clear sky. Experienced runners will concur you typically know the quality of a run within the first ten minutes. Enough time for the endorphins to kick in, or not. Thankfully, despite my lack of sleep, my body responds as it should: leg muscles, stiff from travel, loosen and lengthen as my heart rate increases and my skin dampens to keep all systems cool and functioning. It is particularly comforting to feel one’s body respond to a situation in the way that it should.

I jog about a mile down the road, back past the exit, and shoot a narrow gap in the trees to a slender path that winds up through a meadow. Smooth ground flanked by wildflowers and the grassy smell of plants in early summer enjoying the aftermath of a hard rain. At some point, running with increasing limberness through this verdant inlet, it dawns on me that I’ve passed the the familiar, retrospect division that separates all places into close by and far away.

VI.

In Recapture the Rapture, author Jamie Wheal argues that, “as we have demystified the world, both our selves and our doubts have grown heavier.” I propose that the inverse of this hypothesis is also true: by selectively re-mystifying the world, ourselves and our doubts lighten.

One way to do this is to experience the sublime, to feel that which cannot be fully comprehended. In being overwhelmed by an experience, the hard edges of our capital S self break down such that we feel communion with something greater. We go from a third person observer of the world to second person communion with it, and, in the most extreme circumstances, a first-person union—so fully immersed that we escape ourselves.

But this can only last so long. Our everyday third-person relationship with the world is like being on shore looking at the ocean. Our second-person communion is like being on a boat on the ocean. Our first-person union with the extra-regular is like being submerged underwater.

VII.

The unity of opposites is an even older idea than the absurd or the sublime. It dates to at least the 5th century BC, where Heraclitus wrote about it, describing two opposing things that contradict each other and are yet codependent, held within a field of tension.

A popular aphorism of his goes: “The road up and the road down are the same thing,” in other words, though the road may slant upward and away from you, to someone standing at its crest, it slops downward. The single concept, road, contains the unified opposites of up and down.

One important attribute of the unity of opposites is its ubiquity—the unity of opposites extends to far more than just roads. Hegel, who came much later than Heraclitus, proposed quite a few examples of the unity of opposites, including, among others, the finite versus the infinite, subject versus object, means versus ends, heating versus cooling, and chance versus necessity.

One important conclusion of the unity of opposites is that dynamism powers the world, and to have dynamism, you need conflict generated by significant difference. At the same time, such difference, which is fundamental to nature, makes stasis impossible—nothing lasts forever.

VIII.

On this same trip, I stop for a long-overdue lunch with colleagues with whom I have worked virtually for months. Here, on a bright afternoon at an anonymous restaurant with these people I know so much about and yet so little, my friend Gab introduces me to the concept of “thin places.” They are places where you feel proximal to something extra-regular, where you and your everyday perspective are scarcely separated from the divine, the spiritual, or, to substitute a related phrase, the sublime.

As much as I am taken by this concept, in reflecting, I come to believe thin places are more than simply an experience of the sublime. They have an immersive quality that extends the experience.

IX.

Many scientists believe life on earth began in an estuary.

An estuary is a type of ecotone, a biological ecosystem straddling the overlap of two or more distinct habitats. Estuaries themselves are semi-enclosed bodies of fresh (albeit brackish) water with one or more inlets and an open connection to the ocean. The mixing of freshwater and seawater results in a nutrient-rich soup that makes estuaries some of the most productive natural habitats in the world.

They are full of beautiful, life-giving dynamism as well as a type of algae that emits a sulfur compound called dimethyl sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs.

Thin places are a unity of opposites: they are the dynamic coming together of the extra-regular (the sublime)—which is infinite and experienced by chance—with the everyday (absurd)—which is finite and experienced by necessity.

I think Camille Pissarro, grandfather of the impressionists, knew something about this. He was, among many things, an avid proponent of painting outdoors.

Once, while working with a student, he explained his technical approach to capturing an outdoor scene as such:

"Work at the same time upon sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis and unceasingly rework until you have got it. Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression."

To Pissarro, the painting of an outdoor scene was to be felt generously and unhesitatingly as much as it was to involve the technical deployment of line and color.

Put another way, we activate atmosphere by bringing ourselves to it. Our spirit must be present to create an impression.

XI.

I arrive in Hanover, NH, after the absurdity of boarding the plane and flying to Boston and driving up with a brief stop to run in a sublime meadow.

Now, after attending a conference, I’m running again, through a landscape familiar to me but changed, with an old friend familiar to me but changed.

Feet landing pitter-patter picking places among the roots and rocks to plant and propel.

Hips sashaying as we slalom through the woods.

Smile half-cocked talking about life since we’d last met, namely his new son and my new job.

In between these large subjects, we banter many quotidian things made humorous through prolonged analysis. He and I share a trait I like in anyone who possesses it: a propensity for gleefully overthinking things.

So we go, along the pond now, he on the soft clay shoulder and me on the pavement, striding over the gentle hills. Up past the houses, through campus and across the Green down along Wheelock Street completing our circumnavigation and returning to where most things in running begin, the track. We part ways as he returns to childcare and I, being young, single, and childless, celebrate by sauntering down to the Connecticut River.

Finding my place among those on the dock, which, to most, is the destination itself. Many dry bathing suits worn as pretext to conversation. Various positions of repose. The smell of sunscreen and pine needles. Radiant sun which means little compared to the remarkable thermal inertia of bodies of water.

All the more reason to jump. Two steps back and one bound forward plunging—gasping, splashing—wiping wet locks from my forehead with reddening fingers. The instant adrenal spate of cold water. Shivering immediately. Hoisting myself onto the dry dock and laying soft like a peeled orange appreciating awhile the golden ebullient river shimmering under the heavy sun. Hovering gnats like pretty grains of dust. Muffled exclamations of excitement drifting across the water from the opposite bank. Laying to dry in the cooling air of the coming night of this thin place.

XII.

A fair bit of time and travel have passed since I wrote this. It’s proper summer now. I’m at a cafe in Europe re-reading and I feel the need to add this post-script.

In the airport in early June, before boarding my plane, I decided to go for a walk and stumbled upon a prayer room. I found a seat in the corner and like many people my age, I closed my eyes to pray to something.

Others were praying, and, as far as I could tell, came from different religions and communed with different gods in this small space. A Muslim man performed Maghrib from his knees next to an altar with a Star of David above it, and, just off to the right, a hefty-looking cross. All in a random corner of the Dulles airport.

I can’t say how many of us felt this was a thin place. But for me it was a better way to wait to board an airplane.