For a class about sustainability, the environment and climate change, to not address one of the largest storms to ever hit New York City and certainly one of the most intense and surreal experiences of my entire life would be wrong. The week of Sandy was truly an alternate reality. My house was not destroyed, my family and friends survived physically unscathed and the city remained in at least relative order compared to the immense chaos I would expect from an event as cataclysmic as this, so honestly my loss of power and water for a week seems trivial to even talk about. Yet in reality, it wasn’t.
I constantly found myself immensely bored and unsatisfied and did little the entire week. Nearly everything I would normally do was at least in some way connected to, and often dependent on power. I would look to my laptop or an electric guitar for pleasure and distraction; gone. Browse the internet? Not without an internet connection I wasn’t. Even when I forced myself to simply break down and read a book (and I realize how sad the reality that my only time to turn to this was out of desperation) my natural schedule had me awake at night, and while reading by candlelight sounds like a novel and romantic idea, in reality the dim light got old quite fast.
Once I was able to put my first world problems aside however there was definitely brilliance to that week. Being in such an intensely changed world certainly makes one reexamine what they take for granted and how in many ways surreal their world may be. My house was in the blackout zone but was merely a few blocks from power and, luckily, my parent’s garage. I was able to take their car out to run errands and see friends, and my experience going to a friend’s house uptown was truly surreal. I entered my car in a world that looked straight out of a post apocalyptic film; the streets were eerily quiet and dark, there was garbage and destruction all around me. I hadn’t showered in days and had seen few signs of life that night; except for an occasional beam of flashlight light moving by inside of a window.
When I got out of my car on 73rd and 1st however, it was truly like I had entered another world; either having travelled to a world of the future from the dark ages or coming back from a dark apocalyptic future to see a period of high and extravagance before society’s collapse. Life had not been affected in the least. My friend’s parents made jokes about me being a refugee as they sat in their well lit apartment knowing full well they could go and grab anything from their fridge whenever they wanted, could turn on the TV and find infinite distraction or even simply use the bathroom or wash their hands without worrying about their water usage. When I washed my hands there, I found myself using only drops of water and even being able to take the elevator instead of taking to the stairs was an incredible feeling.
All of a sudden, the luxury of my everyday life became apparent to me. When I hear people across the world simply can’t understand the American way it is not that they are in some way wrong or backwards, the fault is on us. The grandeur of things we find so basic is remarkable on a global scale. Even though I live on the second floor I had probably used the stairs instead of the elevator on at most a handful of occasions. Truly the thought just never even crossed my mind; if I have an elevator why not use it. Similarly if I want to take a 40-minute shower and I can, then why not. My issue is less even with the wastefulness of these actions, but rather with my complete ignorance to the wastefulness.
Now I am not going to try to say I am a completely changed man after 5 days without power, but honestly it did make me see things a little differently. Maybe I can in fact deal with a little less pampering for the sake of the environment and a better future. Also I think it gave me a new understanding of education and of the point of this class. Although changing people’s actions is important, I really think it is secondary. It is far more important however, to make people self-aware. Maybe in a year I’ll forget all of this, but even it I do it’ll stay somewhere in my brain, subconsciously influencing me towards more grounded, rational actions. But one can’t only live in the future and in hypotheticals – for now I am simply more grateful for what I have and finally have some appreciation for it. And for now I still take the stairs.
