I lie to hippies.

I’m walking along the street when I see them standing up ahead, almost looming tall above me, looking menacing with their fisherman’s pants and clipboards, I dance one step left, two steps right, but bam, he has me cornered.

So I tell them I’m already a member of their organisation, or some other organisation that does what they do, but a little differently... Why is that? Is it just because I haven’t factored the awkward little chat with dreadlocked hippy-harry who wants my money into my day? Surely it’s not because I don’t support what they do, and yet despite my glaring Hug a Tree T-shirt I know I don’t want to give them my money, not even so they can more productively show the trees some love.

I told Matt I had to admit, I have never heard what Greenpeace has actually achieved. I know what they try to do, what they want to do, what they protest against, but what have they actually done?

Well they got Kleenex to agree to stop using the Amazon Rainforest for manufacturing snot-rags,

That’s impressive.

They are on the ground in Papua New Guinea, teaching locals more sustainable logging practices

Ok...

They have a seat on the International Whaling Commission

(Hope it’s a comfortable chair...)

And they are active in campaigning for proper labelling of Genetically Modified foods in Australia

The list, he implies, goes on.

I don’t own a car and choose to cycle as much as possible. I’m vegetarian partly because its greener, I’ll sign petitions and espouse green views but I feel uncomfortable giving them my money, or paying Virgin Blue extra money so they will supposedly pay someone to plant trees to absorb the carbon emitted by my flight across the country. I’m cynical about ‘carbon neutral’ 4WD’s, whose owners have paid some company to plant trees so they can keep burning heaps of fuel and of political leaders who bicker incessantly over which of them will be the one to save the world. Should we have the Prime Ministers emissions trading scheme or the opposition leaders ‘practical policy’ of supporting renewable energy, or did we just want to take the Greek salad after all? I’m cynical about them because it’s obvious to me we need both. And its obvious to me, the more political rhetoric I absorb, that politicians are as useless as ‘tits on a bull’, to quote my mother.

And yet, I still don’t want to give Greenpeace my money. And let’s face it, if I lie to them, if even I who gives a shit about trees and climate change, about whales and baby orang-utans won’t give them my money – who the fuck will?

All this and more was running through my head as I walked away, but the thought that begun to take over, to annoy me no end, is pure frustration that there is always something in the back of my mind that seems to prevent me from believing wholeheartedly in anything. A permanent division inside that has me always hedging my bets, doubting, distrusting.

An allem ist zu zweifeln, said Karl Marx. Doubt everything.

But must I really?

[I regret to inform you that this blog will be left inconclusive]