Monday, March 19, 2012

No Impact Man and No Makeup for Emmy

OK this is a two-parter. First I didn't wear any makeup today. It was weird. It's not like it's the first time I've gone without makeup or anything, but it is the first time I've gone without it when I knew I'd be seeing a lot of people that I see on a regular basis at one of my jobs. No one ran screaming, in fact if anyone noticed they didn't say anything. Hmm, to quote some Seinfeld, "Is it possible I'm not as attractive as I think I am?" "Anything's possible." So either you really can't tell the difference, people were just being polite, or no one cares. I'm going with the last option. I can tell you that I felt fantastic! I'm going to do it again tomorrow.

Now on to No Impact Man. You may or may not have heard about him. He has a blog, and a movie and a book.


No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process

I haven't read the book or much of the blog, but I did watch the movie on Netflix last night. Pretty interesting if you're into that sort of thing. I wish they'd gone into a little more detail about their changes, but I assume that is all in the book. There were two things that really stuck out to me though. The first was the reaction of the people around them. I was truly sad when the wife said that one of her co-workers was told by their spouse not to shake her hand or touch her. That really distressed me. I know it was because of one of the choices they made but it was just so ridiculous. I mean, being environmentally friendly does not mean you have to be unsanitary. Just because you do things a different way doesn't mean you won't be clean. If you were a clean person before, you're probably going to be a clean person after.

There just seemed to be so much anger in the beginning, but I've talked about that here before and they addressed it in the movie. I think that when you make a big change it can sometimes scare those around you. I also think it makes them take a look at their own lives and maybe make them question their own choices. People don't like doing that. I don't like doing that, and trust me, I've done it a lot. Obviously No Impact Man wanted to make people question their choices to some degree, but for the greater good, not to make people feel guilty. It's the same for me when I talk about being a vegetarian. It's not because I want to make you feel guilty for eating meat, it's because I want to give you another option and see if it is something that might benefit the people I care about. I think there's a false sense of smugness that is implied in big changes that really isn't intended.

The second thing I loved was the one green change he thought everyone should make. I won't spoil it though, you have to watch the movie!

No comments:

Post a Comment