darthelmet

How would you go about getting your town to plant more trees?

I live in the suburbs (I know it sucks, but that’s just my current family situation.) and lately I’ve been trying to get outside more for my mental and physical health. The problem is, the suburbs are kind of shit for this. Obviously there’s all the car-centric infrastructure which makes walking more difficult and dangerous, but there’s not much I could conceivably do about that in any reasonable amount of time. However, the other big issue I’ve found, especially as it’s gotten so hot this summer, is there are barely any trees, and thus barely any shade anywhere along the sidewalks. Even the local park doesn’t have much shade aside from a small area in the corner. So it’s really unpleasant to walk anywhere. I get super sweaty even taking a leisurely walk on most days of the summer.

So I was thinking that maybe I could lobby the town to plant more trees such that most of the sidewalks are at least partially shady. I know there are some barriers to this like the tree roots cracking sidewalks and probably some NIMBYs who only view nature as being ornamental, and of course this would cost money to do. So it wouldn’t be a trivial thing, but I don’t think it’s entirely outside the realm of possibility either.

What do you think are some strategies I could use to make this happen? What sort of things do I need to do or account for? Obviously it’s going to be different depending on the town, but if there is any kind of general idea of how to go about this I would appreciate hearing it.

How do you conceive of your "self?"

I have been suffering from a whole host of mental health issues for a long time in my life. Some only popped up around college, some were probably there for most of my life and were just not diagnosed yet.

Lately I’ve found myself struggling with thinking about or describing to others things I like or don’t like or ways I go about life. There are some things I either used to like or think I should like but don’t at the moment. I might even come up with reasons to rationalize these dislikes that sound plausible to me. But then I stop and feel kind of disingenuous about it. Like do I not like a thing because that’s what my “real” feelings are? Or is it something due to one of my issues like depression and I might like the thing if I were finally able to find a treatment that worked. What is the difference between my intellectual thoughts and how my brain and body actually feel and behave?

Another manifestation of this has to do with the things that bother me about the world. There’s so much terrible stuff out there and I feel bad about that, but am I depressed because I feel bad about these things or do I feel bad about these things because I’m depressed? Would I stop feeling bad about wars or climate change if I weren’t depressed anymore? That doesn’t seem like it would make sense. I guess I’d just be regularly sad as opposed to clinically depressed?

Things get even weirder and more existential when I start to think about what we even are. Our brains aren’t just computers running software. We’re a collection of cells all doing their own things that somehow come together to perform larger functions that compose a larger complex organism. Not even all of the things that make our body work and affect how we feel are even technically “belonging” to to the body. Things like the bacteria in our guts are super important to our health and as I understand it, have an impact on mental health to some extent.

So what am I? What is “me?” Is it possible to separate my thoughts from my body? What does it mean to think things that are in conflict with your feelings?

Obviously this is a pretty vague topic and can be approached from a variety of perspectives such as biology, psychology, philosophy, etc. So I’m curious what people think about this.