My high school was built on a toxic waste dump. The land it was on was once part of a large U.S. Army depot built during World War II. The school district “bought” a large undeveloped part of the depot for a symbolic one dollar. This made the transfer of land legal because the law prohibited the U.S. Government from outright giving away Federal property.
At the time, no one asked why the Government was willing to ceed such a large parcel of land. It was considered a “good deal” that benefited the community. There was a need to find an appropriate location for a new high school because four small school district were merging into one new district. These four districts had been around since the area had been settled by the first Europeans into the Ohio territory. They had grown considerably since the end of WWII from the subsequent “Baby Boom” that produced a huge population bubble of school age children.
It took twenty years for the buried truth about what was under the new school to emerge. Some concerned citizens began to notice that there seemed to be an unusually large number of graduates of this school who developed various cancers. It began to look like there was a cancer “cluster” emerging.
After much lobbying by local citizens, a study of the soil, air and water around the school site was initiated. The results of this study, which at first was strongly contested by Government lawyers, revealed that there were high levels of carcinogenic compounds present in the school property.
Once these results were made public, local residents remembered seeing large holes being dug in the area of the school. Into these holes, obsolete military equipment, barrels of used petroleum solvents and all types of waste were dumped when the Army Depot was in operation. It seems that no one at the time thought to ask if this would be a problem in the future.
It appears to be a deeply imbedded trait in humans to not consider long-term consequences of their behavior if it serves the present need to solve a problem. In this case, it was a place to build a much-needed new high school at minimum cost to taxpayers. No one intended that the children in the community would be at increased risk for cancers.
Everyone was happy with the deal until they weren’t. When the real cost of building on a toxic waste dump became personal to families who lost loved ones and those of us who were still healthy but left wondering if we had a cancer time bomb in us, something changed. Questions started being asked that were ignored years earlier.
There were surely people in the Federal Government who knew what was under the ground they “sold” to the local school district just as there were local residents and former employees of the depot who had witnessed what had been buried in that land. No one thought to connect the dots that painted a complete picture. The truth was buried with the toxic waste.
When I work with clients, I help them find what the truth is about their lives. On the surface this should seem like a relatively easy task. In reality it is not that simple. Who we are, why we do what we do, how we act or react to situations is so often driven by life experiences that took place long before we were developed enough to understand what was happening to us and in us. In effect, they are buried truths.
When clients tell me they had a great childhood or a terrible childhood, I wait to hear what follows. It is when they start to share the narrative of their lives that I begin to understand what has created the self they are now and how this shapes the way they are currently interacting with the world around them.
We are who we are, tautological as that may sound. What we know or don’t know about ourselves is what forms how we function in the world. I find that the majority, if not all of my clients, have parts of themselves that they are unaware of or have tried to never look at out of fear that it means they are permanently flawed or worse. They fear their personal truths.
A lot of debate has taken place in recent years, especially since the 2016 Presidential election in the United States, about what is true and what is fake. The then new President talked about “alternative facts” and “fake news”. This debate has continued even after the last election with continued claims of fraudulent election results.
When there is no general consensus about what is true and what is not, chaos results. In chaos, everything becomes relative,
guided only by personal beliefs and personal biases. The “truth” evaporates in the heated exchanges between polarized factions. To quote from the 1966 song, “For What It’s Worth” by the rock group, Buffalo Springfield, “ Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.” I would say the converse of this is also true, “Nobody’s wrong if everybody thinks they are right.”
This begs the question, “What is the truth?” I cannot say what is the truth in every situation but I can say that “truth” appears when unexamined choices collide with long-term consequences. The decision to build a high school on “free” land that had been used for over twenty years as a military waste dump resulted in long-term consequences for a significant number of young people.
People will often say that truth is purely subjective. Others will say there are absolute truths. This, to me, is missing the point. Truth is not a “thing” to be carried around like a trophy or minimized like a passing fad. It is pure energy that courses through us and illuminates the truth or folly of how we are living. It is transitory. If it is accepted, we gain the insight and courage to live as we know we should. If it is ignored, it will recede to its source and grow in power to arise again with a strength that may doom us.
As my clients gain the courage to encounter the fullness of their lives, the “truth” energizes them to live more freely, unshackled from old misconceptions, hurts, biases, self-doubts. They are more likely to make proactive rather than reactive choices. They gain an increased feeling of authenticity in how they are living. They are more their true self by embracing who they are in their entirety.
There seem to be two ways humans avoid the truth: omission and commission. In omission, we don’t think to ask the right questions out of lack of knowledge. Many times I have had clients who didn’t know that their thoughts, actions or beliefs were what stood in the way of having the success or happiness they sought. They had never questioned their fundamental assumptions. They came to counseling baffled by what caused their distress.
I have also had clients who know why they are not living the way they should but out of fear have avoided doing what they need to do to have a better life. They fear that the “truth” will open them up to parts of themselves that will make them look bad in the eyes of those around them. My experience with clients has been that this is an irrational fear. Once a client begins to see the truth about themselves, they come to accept more of who they are. They feel liberated from their fears and as a consequence gain more choice about how they want to live their lives. In this case, the old saying, “The truth will set you free” is accurate.
I don’t believe anyone who was on the site selection committee for my high school knew that twenty years later children would develop fatal health issues because of what was under the ground. It was an act of omission. In the early 1960’s the U.S. was only just beginning to recognize that the waste products from unregulated disposal of military, industrial and municipal sources were the cause of serious health hazards.
Our short-term expediency and ignorance ran headlong into the long-term consequences of our actions. It wasn’t that there hadn’t been warnings from the scientific community about our actions. There certainly had been but it wasn’t enough until the consequences became so evident that the truth was unavoidable. Throughout the 1970’s and up to this day, we continue to be struck by the lightening bolts of truth trying to illuminate a different path to take regarding our pollution of ourselves and the planet.
In some cases, we have accepted the truth that has been revealed. My high school was closed and a beautiful modern school was built on farmland that had never been a toxic waste dump. President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 to address the growing recognition of the effects of unregulated pollution throughout the U.S. The Great Lakes now support healthy fisheries that had nearly ceased to exist because of industrial pollution. Our automobiles pollute less, especially in the form of toxic lead and CO2. The U.S. burns far less coal, a source of heavy metals and noxious particulate.
When my clients allow me to help them address their omitted truths and their deliberate denial of their truth, their lives, in a sense, also become cleaner, less polluted. As their mental health improves, they often begin to take steps to improve their physical health. Couples who have been desperately struggling with their relationship begin to report they are taking walks together, touching more or are making healthier food choices. Individuals will report sleeping better and finding more satisfaction in their interactions with people.
It appears to me that we humans are constantly in a race recognize the truths we need to have a healthy life before the long-term consequences of our actions become unavoidable. The longer the interval between the denial of truth and its acceptance, the greater the build up of the “lightening” energy.
I am always saddened when I have couples who have waited so long to address the problems between them that reconciliation becomes nearly impossible. The “lightening” that could have illuminated the path to reunion became so strong that its power destroyed their love. This can also be the case in societies and nations. The social problems within a society can become so numerous and persistent that the power of truth denied creates consequences that can cause great harm to the foundations of that society.
When we ignore the tens of thousands of people living on the streets of our cities, when we ignore the consequences of unchecked proliferation of lethal weapons carried openly in our communities, when we let self-serving political figures continually undermine our voting rights, when we permit a narrow-minded, bigoted minority of people to dictate what can and can’t be taught to our children, the lightening of truth grows in force.
If we accept the truth, as my high school did, as Congress did in the creation of the EPA, as do many of my clients, we can be guided by the flash of light the truth brings.
“Before the fiddlers have fled
Before they ask us to pay the bill
And while we still have the chance
Let’s face the music and dance”*
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“Let’s Face the Music and Dance”, Irving Berlin; from the 1936 film, “Follow the Fleet”.
This is my fiftieth essay since I began writing this series in March 2020. It has been quite a journey of self discovery and connection with you, my readers. As always, I welcome your feedback. I am so appreciative of many of you who have shared my writing with friends and colleagues. My readership has steadily grown over these past two years. I hope that will continue. Writers need readers to inspire them to try even harder to produce interesting and meaningful content. Please continue to share my writing and encouraging people you know to subscribe. There is no charge.
As always, I wish you to be safe and be well. This pandemic/endemic is not over. Love the ones you are with and the ones you wish you could be with. Life is short under any circumstance.
Thank you Bruce!
I often ponder what would happen if more people started running for elected office. It seems like we are all waiting for someone else to step up. If none of us do, it continues to be left to people with different outlooks or moral codes.