Watch Your Love Miles - The Catch About Flying

It's the holiday season, which is a very common time to fly to see loved ones. I was Skyping into a 2020 New Year's Day family gathering and my grandma told me, "I miss you. When are you going to come home?" Unfortunately for my family, I have decided to stop flying the rest of my life, if I can help it.

I first heard of the concept of love miles a few years ago. It is the concept of incurring mileage to see loved ones through flying.

At that point I had already started wondering about the carbon footprint of all our activities, even ones we don't talk about as much, such as flying and internet usage (apparently one Google search requires as much energy as boiling a cup of tea!). Then in mid-2019 I read how an average American couple took one round trip flight, and that one activity made up about half their annual carbon footprint.

Dec 2017 - the last time I flew, maybe ever

My family flew out to see me in Calgary in 2014

The point really hit home: flying is probably the most intensive carbon footprint activity we engage in.

It's nice that we've been given choices on how to live more sustainably by, say, turning the lights off, taking less showers (I haven't taken a proper shower in 4 months), eating more locally (I dumpster dive or "urban forage" when I can), eating less meat (I do this about once a week), or by alternative commuting (I rode my bike to school and work in 2019).

But we've not been told to reduce our worst individual carbon emitting activity of all - flying.

Why is this?

Maybe because flying has become so common in developed society that it has become ingrained in the culture. Maybe because those that fly are so used to it, they're no longer able to give it up, or admit to their environmental impact. Maybe because it is extremely profitable for the airline industry and all collateral industries.

Flying is seen as a luxurious activity that makes traveling the world, accomplish business and going to weddings and family reunions accessible like never before. People brag about their flying around the water cooler. "Guess what I did for the holidays? I flew to Bali!" People are similarly guilt tripped into not flying out to visit their friends and family. "Why didn't you come to my wedding?"

It's true. I have missed most of my friends weddings. And I have not been home in about one year now, after driving one week halfway across my vast country of Canada, from Toronto to British Columbia.

Do I feel guilty about this? I can't help but feel a little. But I keep looking at the bigger picture and can no longer justify flying in my life.

I've been very fortunate to travel a lot

Probably my favourite picture from my Peru travel

I have been very fortunate - looking at the big picture of my friends and family, I've done more traveling than most of them ever will. Looking at the global picture, I'm fortunate just to be able to step on a plane once. But now that I carry the awareness of the impact of flying, I can't step on a plane knowing that that one flight I take will contribute significantly to my carbon footprint, in an era when climate change is wreaking havoc on our environment.

My previous flight was in 2017 and I hope it can be my last. I've since adapted beautifully to my pledge - I've had several amazing road trips around Canada. Road trips are an amazing way to travel - a much lower carbon footprint, while engaging in slow travel, a movement to reclaim a more immersive way of traveling by avoiding flying and country hopping. And I do still plan on long distance traveling - my last great journey will be to hitchhike a sailboat to Eurasia, cross overland to the other side, then hitch a sailboat back to North America. After that I think I'll be ready to settle down, hopefully tend to land and foster community.

Please understand this is my own decision. Please don't judge me, and understand I'm not judging you. I'm not asking you to stop flying like me and hitchhike sailboats. I'm simply sharing my story to spread the awareness of the impacts of our actions. If we all had awareness of every single one of our actions and its impact on the bigger picture, I think we'd be doing a lot of things differently. Awareness can be a burden but it's also a responsibility and duty incumbent upon us in this day and age, where our decisions have a global impact, all the way from flying to buying an avocado at the grocery store.

Just like the rhetoric and culture have slowly changed over several generations regarding cigarettes, and more recently, over eating meat, the same thing I'm sure will happen someday regarding flying. Perhaps in the future, people will be guilt tripped into flying instead of the other way around.

(PS. I have also read that flying as a technology will take a very long time to make a leap to becoming sustainable. Gravity is a huge force to overcome)

Giving and Receiving is Not Just for the Holidays

As the Christmas holidays are nearly behind us, I've done a lot of reflecting on the act of giving and receiving and the psychology behind it.

As a non-participant in consumer-driven events, I used to wonder if I was just being selfish and cheap. But now I see that this is not true - instead I make giving a regular practice, and not one motivated only by holidays, centred around money.

This year has been an amazing year for both of these things. I feel like I've given a lot selflessly - little bits to a lot of people, and a lot to a small number of people. I've also received a ton of love and support from new friends, also selflessly and without conditions.

Giving

I've shared a lot of my creations with friends selflessly. I've made and shared a lot of homemade beer, kombucha and ginger beer. In the course of going to massage school, I've given a lot of massages to friends, especially those with aches and pains. Besides these things, I have a pretty eclectic collection I amassed through diverse means of bartering, dumpster diving and creating that I share, such as plant medicine creations and crystals, as well as emotional support and wisdom. Behind it all is not money, but time and thought.

Offering massage at a music festival

I love making beer, and sharing it

I made and mailed this drawing for a very inspiring friend

Sharing my dumpster diving treasures

I've also come into contact with a few people this year that I've connected really well with and concentrated my giving to, causing them to express their immense gratitude while making them uncomfortable.

This year I've taken my giving to a new level. I credit this to my newfound level of self worth and self love. I also credit it to the incredible amount in which I've received.

Receiving

I have also received a lot, whether it's from big experiences such as Burning Man, or intimate interactions with friends. But none more profound than receiving accommodation in a time of transition and uncertainty.

I took a 1.5 month summer road trip and returned to a job, only to learn that there was no more work left for me. I called up some friends, and they let me stay with them in their home without expectations of money or timeline. I returned my gratitude by helping them out around the house, spending time with their kid. I ended up spending one month with them, immersing myself into their lives and their magical community, feeling big love and belonging, growing into a family together.

This magical child's magical parents gave me accommodation in a time of need

We had an energy exchange based on intuition and lots of communication. I checked in with them throughout the month, and they were always happy with the arrangement. Still, receiving so much unconditional generosity from my friends was hard at times, because I feared I was interfering, sponging, or I was unworthy of their help.

Reclaiming the Culture of Giving and Receiving

Feeling like we're interfering, or feeling unworthy.

These are major psychological barriers we face as individuals to receiving help. Sadly, these thoughts are norms of our modern society, which is one centred around materialism and individualism, and helps to drive behaviours that funnel our money up the social and economic hierarchy. Our society has taught us that everything we need can be attained by the dollar, and that receiving help means we're weak. And that we should not give to the weak because they are just sponging off of society.

And even though our society is viewed as modern and developed, we are programmed to have a mindset of scarcity - never enough. Never enough money, never enough things. We are never enough. This leads us to feeling unworthy of help. "Why should anyone help me? I don't deserve it." With this mindset, we cannot even begin to contemplate the idea of giving to others.

The time has come to reclaim our feeling of unworthiness. I have been lucky enough to receive kindness starting years back, when I was just taking my first steps of my spiritual awakening. This inspired and enabled me the opportunity to work on my inner self. I did this by focusing on creating, not consuming.

Consuming fills a black hole of unworthiness.

Creating got me in touch with my inner self, and gave me a channel of self expression, elevating my self worth. Once my self worth increased, I became more and more confident in sharing my gifts, and developed feelings of worthiness that allowed me to receive, creating a virtuous circle of giving and receiving. By creating, giving and receiving I rejected the feeling of scarcity and now embrace a mindset of abundance.

Through giving and receiving I have manifested feelings of community and interconnectedness, and feel part of the burgeoning revolution to reverse environmental destruction and survive as a species.

With all this in mind, giving and receiving is like a dance. It requires vulnerability and empathy. The giver needs to be ready to give without expectations, and the receiver must be ready to receive with humility and gratitude.

On my icy road trip Jan 2019 from Toronto to Vancouver, I received sanctuary from friends the entire way

I will leave you with one of my favourite quotes that has really sunk in for me over the past year. It comes from the modern yet timeless classic novel and film Into the Wild and originates from the diary and mind of Chris McCandless, a counter-culture hero. He wrote:

Happiness is only real when shared.

Ultimately we all want to be happy - the fastest way there is not hoarding one's abundance, but sharing it with others.

Have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Give (and receive) with all your heart!

Chris McCandless, whom the movie Into the Wild is based