In honor of World Ocean Day, I'd like to give a thumbs-down shout-out to our species for carelessly laying waste to the oceans of our blue planet. I'd like to also take this opportunity to remind everyone that the reason the planet is blue, IS because of the very oceans we are actively decimating. The next generations, should they somehow survive all this nonsense, will most likely call it the "brown planet” for all the rust and actual crap, or "plastic planet” for all the shopping bags flying in the radioactive winds. I live in Florida, which is basically a sand dune jotting into the ocean. It is flush with animals and plant life. Or was. Until a certain species arrived, this was an ocean-front replica of Garden of Eden, with the ocean and land and all the creatures within them living in glorious harmony in an echo system that was working like a well-crafted Swiss watch. Until, I'm assuming, just like the real Garden of Eden, a mad scientist husband-and-wife team arrived and spliced genes in snakes and apples and things, and thus, gave birth to two new life forms: Tourists and Snowbirds! These non-native invasive species plundered the natural resources like an unsupervised toddler going at a sundae cone. They bulldozed forests, destroying native plant-life, cutting down centuries-old trees, to make room for theme parks. Theme parks with artificial plant life! And, get this: plastic trees! Some after-thought was given to nature conservancy, though, and some areas, however tiny, were left alone. And then, thousands of acres of green spaces around were paved over so visitors could park their cars and visit these remaining few acres of green spaces left between shopping strips, pawn shops, and gambling casinos. And a few thousand gift shops with over-sized parking lots, hundreds of road rage incidents with casualties, and fifty or so theme parks later, the whole place started looking like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie. Like lava from an active volcano, this unfettered human pollution covered everything from shore to shore. And it did not stop at the shore, either. The mighty ocean got its fair share of abuse along with everything else on land. Actually, “the ocean got polluted” would not even be a proper description any longer. Now, it's more like “pollution got a little bit of ocean splashed on it”. Dolphins and alligators alike are choking on small white balls with weird dents on them, while panthers are drowning in backyard swimming pools. Black bears are starving next to the dumpsters behind supermarkets full of half-eaten food items, and the fish are buying up all the scuba gear and oxygen tanks just to survive the unlivable polluted waters. The catch of the day for the local fishermen is typically made up of golf clubs, meth pipes, refrigerators and worn-out flip-flops. And, the occasional fish. Clinically-depressed fish that chose suicide-by-fisherman over death-by-plastic-and-or-chemicals. Whatever damage levels achieved with land-based efforts like sewage, industrial waste and plastic garbage, was further supported and expanded with off-shore drilling with occasional oil spills on top of their regular pollutions. Off-shore sounds sterile until you do the math and realize it's still in the same ocean and only one ocean current or tropical storm distance from shore. Think gun-to-the-head execution-style versus sniper fire. Same end result: One fatally-shot ocean. It may not be too late. But we need a whole new species of mankind to enter the scene for a better result. One that respects the environment and not treat it like a distant relative up in age that we are mooching off of, who in all likelihood will leave us the entire estate in his will anyway. The very same estate we are burning down! Time to teach our children, the planet is sustainable, only if we choose to sustain it! So next time they ask you "plastic or paper bag?". hear this: "choke a bird or kill a tree?". And juggle your groceries to the bed of your gigantic truck that would better serve a commercial enterprise with heavy hauling needs, than a petite accountant working from home. Let us observe the “Ocean Day”, not to completely disregard the oceans for the rest of the year, but to remind ourselves that the oceans deserve our attention every single day. If we do not, then we might as well teach our grandkids to celebrate “Breathable Air Day” along with “Potable Water Day “only once a year, too. And hope that there will be enough air masks and rationed water to go around.

The sidewalk is stained and uneven. Presumably, the unevenness came first and tumbled the alcohol-filled bellies of the night folk, which in turn caused the stains. The people who surround me right now remind me of those night folk. They yell and stomp to the melody of their own voices. They bump into one another and pour their hearts out to the sky. Their energy is truly intoxicating, it envelops me and soon enough I am doing the same. We sing and we scream, and we cry. But it is not night time. All the bars and the clubs are closed. In fact, the sun shines so bright behind us that I can feel a puddle of sweat gathering on my lower back. We do not sing to music, we do not scream because we are free, and we do not cry for our own selfish reasons. We do it because we no longer have the choice not to. The strings of morality attach themselves to the crowd and move us forward like a winding snake, waiting to strike. Signs painted with pleas are pushed out of the crowd and then pulled back in. Their corners sharper than the ingrown toenail digging through my flesh. It's painful, but it's the kind of pain that is truly nothing. The kind of first world melodrama that manifests itself in different forms at the end of every week. What I am doing is supposed to be bigger than that, bigger than everything. A matter of death or even faster death. These are the words the wind speaks to us on a sweltering day in September. They begin their journey far north where melting glaciers screech profanity as they drown in the ocean below. Their cries are slowly moulded by time and space until they become digestible enough that they can be fed to our fragile egos. A man spits them out onto the sidewalk in front of our conservative representative. The crowd falls silent as this cartoon fool contorts and cusses until his face can no longer support a darker shade of red. In the distance, you can hear our glaciers moan as they accept defeat in this global game of telephone. Congratulations, you have succeeded in looking like an idiot in front of the man who just tried to tell us that solar energy works better in Europe because they are closer to the sun. Behind them, a window reflects a scene back to me. In the middle, two little boys point fingers at one another. Behind them, 600 people stand and watch. Reality TV has gotten quite predictable these days. The crowd seems to agree and slowly people die off until there are only a few of us left. We stand in a circle and listen. I don't know why I stayed, to be honest, I don't completely understand why I walked here in the first place. All I know is that what we did today feels important. We did not walk to get to a destination, we walked so that 50 years from now our kids can walk too. But their bellies will be full, and the moon will be shining and the only thing they will have to worry about is the uneven sidewalks.

When I was ten years old, the only thing I was worried about was who I should play with at recess. However, that all changed when my grandma told me about an annual cleanup that happens at the lake every may. At first, I wasn't thrilled about the idea of having to pick up other people's litter, but I was soon persuaded to help. It made me realize that sometimes people can get so caught up on things that don't matter, that they miss the things that do. When the day of the cleanup finally rolled around, it was a desert. Because nobody showed, they decided to reschedule it for the next weekend. My grandma and I thought it would be a fantastic idea to try and advertise the cleanup as much as possible. We made phone calls, social media posts, and even spread the word to the customers at her restaurant. Eventually, the day of the cleanup came. It was packed in fact, over a hundred people showed up. My cousin Drew and I decided that we should go cleanup around the shoreline. It was disgusting, there was trash everywhere! As we cleaned up, we noticed that a duck had a baby blue piece of plastic dangling out of its mouth, but just as it flew away the tiny piece of garbage slipped out of the duck's bill. This established to me and my cousin that not only does the trash look awful, but it also has a big impact on the wildlife too. “People can pass by this every day, and no think anything of it.” he stated. “I know” I replied softly. Later that night, I had thought a lot about what he said, and how I was a part of the problem. Before the cleanup I could have cared less about the pollution on the ground and in the water. In fact, people all around the world don't even come close to understanding what they are doing to this planet, and I wanted to make a difference. Now when I see trash that I can pick up I always do to try and help make earth a better place. Overall, if there is something you truly believe in, then you shouldn't be afraid to encourage others to help. It doesn't take much to make a difference, but even a small change can have a huge impact.

Long ago, my health became detrimental to normal life. First intermittent, now it's more often having escalated at a city shelter. I could no longer continue to work or finish my university studies pending health changes. Shelter food made me choke, vomit or sent me to the loo. It affects me daily. Every meal is sheer torture: I never know if I'll keep it down. A fluoroscopy confirmed that frequent up-chucking has narrowed and scarred my esophagus irreversibly. These dark times must pass. Like a boa constrictor who regurgitates barely-digested animals complete with that sticky gelatinous saliva, my choking is a lengthy painful process. Unfortunately, my constant throwing up isn't seen as an ingenious way of avoiding danger. The turkey vulture purposefully pukes up an entire stomach's wing-heavy contents, so that a rare predator will turn away from the maggot-infested stinky shit and rotting carcasses. My purging is just plain embarrassing and uncontrollable. Like boas who feed on rodents, songbirds, lizards and other small mammals, my normal diet is varied. My favorite meal is fish/seafood, rice/risotto and grilled vegetables. I like chicken, beef, lamb, and pork but can't consume these proteins without painful hard swallows. I can relate to captive boas prone to Inclusion Body Disease characterized by chronic regurgitation and abnormal painful postural positions: their challenges are like mine with Eosinophilic Esophagitis and other serious ills. Like a non-venomous boa, I wrap my coils around my faith. With God around me, I trust that things will improve henceforth. Also coiling myself around my friends, church family and sister, they act as the editors of my life and writings. Like the monogamous vulture, I'm fiercely loyal to those I love. Now others need to stick by me through thick and thin. Dark days must soon pass. Like boas whose habitat is threatened, so is mine, as Toronto's housing crisis means rising costs and limited affordable accessibility. As boas have adapted their perambulation to a straight line, I adjust to the times. Extinction threatens vultures too: they are poisoned by eating dead livestock given medication toxic to them. Shelters have fed me food months-to-a-year-beyond-expiration dates, poisonous to my now-delicate system. By picking dead carcasses clean, unsuspecting environmentalist turkey vultures are on clean-up and recycling duty to prevent the spread of disease. Their acute sense of smell has helped gas companies detect gas leaks as vultures circled attracted to the smell of gas also found in dead animals. Concerned with the environment, I enter contests funding tree plantings, clean-ups, and literacy programs. When migrating or searching for food, vultures congregate in ‘kettles' flocks of several hundred. I feed off the Salvation Army Bible study groups, kettle-crazed too. Like a baby boa, I was immediately independent, somehow discerning appropriate food without instruction. According to my father, I was ‘contrary' from birth refusing to drink my ‘milkies' and spewing up formula. My parents fed me pediatrician-recommended melted ice-cream. Somehow, I survived my first year, lactose intolerance then unknown. Again, I puke up constantly: it's hard to get nutrients into me. I'm not like others. I never thought as others do. Research is in my blood. An independent thinker, I can figure out most things with little or no instruction. Nowadays, Google becomes my first line of defense when faced with an unknown. Similar to boas and turkey vultures I hiss if threatened or encountering social injustice or iniquities upon the vulnerable. My sometimes-biting words are intended to propel others to act. Now I observe people's movements and utterances. Like an eagle-eyed vulture, I wait for the next juicy story. I write stories for contests. I may win one or not. But either way I'm the better for honing my observational, research and writing skills. Contests keep me alive. Everyday I write to achieve self-imposed entry deadlines. Too busy to worry about all the exigent conditions around me, including my own life's horrors, I focus elsewhere. Dark periods will lift someday. Till then, I keep my mind active even when my body fails me. Sometimes I write in floods like the expulsion of a boa's or vulture's stomach contents. Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness. Other times I hover, searching for words. Like a vulture circling its prey from high to low altitudes, I scavenge for details to fuel my stories by people-watching. My prey is not physically dead. Yet like the city's forgotten vulnerable many are dead in prospects, motivations, hopes and dreams. Like the turkey vulture circling overhead, I hope for that tasty tidbit. Rather than with menacing size, I want my writings to stand out shining a light on social injustice. I want to change minds - ‘What ifs” to ‘right now.' I'm different. Boa-Turkey-Vulture Me.

One day in my natural class in high school, my teacher gave an assignment to analyze nature processes. It was an essay that I had to experience for real. So, I went outside and took several days camping trip with my classmates. I learnt that nature process is actually a complex interaction among plants, animals, and the environment. These interactions, which include photosynthesis, pollination, decomposition, and others, shape natural communities, and most important thing is that this process completely help the environment sustains itself pretty well. It was a remarkable observation to see how they move nutrients or energy from one place to another. A nature process that includes rain, groundwater movement, freeze-thaw cycles, and the action of plants, animals, and microorganism are the pathway to meet their needs. The bedrock used by the plants for growth had to be broke by the storm to become smaller and smaller pieces until the elements are available in the soil for the plants to take up with their roots. Then the photosynthesis process moves carbon from the atmosphere into plant tissues and the pollination process moves pollen from flower to flower using energy supplied by insects or other animals. The animal gets nutrients from the plant, and the plant gets help reproducing itself. Well, even the wastes such as fallen leaves and animal droppings are all recycled back into the environment to enhance and perpetuate the future life. It creates a harmony in silence while no body is seeing. Learning from the nature, it is peace that lives beyond the words. If peace can be described by painting, what would you draw? A calm lake like a mirror towering mountains all around with the blue sky and fluffy white clouds, or a rugged mountain with an angry sky which rain fell heavily and a foaming waterfall in the downside the mountain, but there is a tiny bush growing in a crack in the rock and there is a mother bird had built her nest? There are many ways to describe a “PEACE” word. People normally imagine it in the state of lonely scene that there is no one exist. That's why they simply look at peace as a symbol of no war. However, I am absolutely into the second painting because in the midst of rush of angry water, sat the mother bird on her nest in perfect place to live and breed. The first painting is not really a peace because it is hard to create a world without human alive. In fact, it is necessary to know that the worldwide population is somewhat bigger year by year. Consequently, it can be denied that people get along another and sometimes have a conflict. In political philosophy as Thomas Hobbes defined, a conflict -competing to be the most powerful- is a just natural of law since its nature feeling as human being (homo homini lupus). The point is as long as human can meet their needs properly and safely, they all experience the real peace. People should learn a lot from the nature. We see the heavy rain or storm as something terrible that break everything, yet they actually does the process of moving energy/nutrients each other to meet their needs. In the real term, human security should be a goal life. At a minimum, human security means a condition where people easily experience economic development, social justice, environmental protection, democratization, disarmament, respect for human rights, and the rule of law. Conflict, chaos, and war might be still exist, but as long as people are responsible to take care of the sustainability of future civilization, they should be not hurt each other and keep living as harmony like nature system does. Peace means to be in the midst of noise and mess but still be calm in your heart.