(This is a letter to my step-father who is so hard of hearing that he is basically deaf. So I really can’t hold down a conversation with him and when I try, I have to yell so hard that it’s very much not enjoyable. I may someday give him this letter.)
If there’s anything I know about you Mike, it’s that you love your business. You love the deal-making, the shop talk, the pieces and parts that you use to create and build things. You probably wouldn’t want to live without your business, your shop. You proudly told my mother that you will work until the day you die.
You love business itself, too. It’s everything to you. The Wall Street Journal and CNBC can hold you captivated for hours. You surround yourself with dollar signs and markets. I’m glad I don’t know how many times a day you curse Obama or say cruel things about the “other side”. Better yet, I’m glad my mother doesn’t know.
I’ve noticed that you seem to have no relationship with nature. In fact, could you possibly have disdain for it? Or maybe it just means nothing to you either way.
Well it means a lot to me. It’s everything to me. The woods are my “shop”. I love the smells and sights and everything about it. I don’t know if I would want to live without it. I wish you could see how what I treasure most matters too.
And I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about it but not just “business” makes up America. We also have tons of beautiful landscapes, interesting plants, lakes and streams, forests… so many unbelievable places and things.
Even though you choose not to have a relationship with nature that doesn’t mean millions of children in the future won’t want to.
When you come to me and tell me that some farmers in California aren’t getting irrigated because a tiny little fish (pinching your fingers together to show me how small it is) is endangered, with that look of disgust on your face, all I can do is shake my head in disappointment.
That little fish feeds other bigger fish, and if that little fish disappears it will be another rung on the ladder to a dead river. I’m not the only one who cares about that. There are men who like business who care about that too.
When you say we should get rid of the EPA, does that mean you are okay with factories pouring their by-products into waterways when that would either kill the life in the river or poison children that drink it, or both….? Is that just okay with you? Or do you tell yourself that the fish really aren’t being killed and the children aren’t really being poisoned?
Perhaps you don’t think about it at all.
But sometimes I wonder.
saywhateveriwant 