September 8, 2024 by Gina Murdock

*Image courtesy @ricsorgel Canva/Getty Images*

On July 21 of this year — Captain Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace, founder of Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation – was arrested in Greenland. I met him when I lived in Telluride, as he was a frequent guest of the Telluride Mountainfilm Festival.

I was and continue to be incredibly inspired by this human who puts his life on the line and has organized thousands of volunteers to protect marine life worldwide. He is a hero, and his arrest speaks volumes about our priorities on this planet. We reward polluters, corporations, and billionaires with tax breaks while humanitarian and environmental heroes, who are mostly volunteers, end up dead or in jail for trying to wake up our society to the peril of our ways.

Captain Watson is facing 15 years in jail in Japan for his work to stop illegal whaling and save humanity. As he says on his foundation website, “We go where others fear to go, no matter how hostile or remote the seas, no matter how formidable the opposition because if we don’t, life in the seas dies and if the ocean dies, we die.”

I’ve been struck by the commitment of him and others like him who dedicate their lives to saving children, animals, and the earth. I feel inspired by them. I want to be like them, but then I don’t.

*Image courtesy Kammeran Gonzalez-Keola Canva/PexelsImages*

It’s too dangerous, I think, so I sit on the sidelines and make my donations and share petitions. As someone who grew up on the Pacific Ocean obsessed with dolphins and marine life, I used to dream of working at Sea World and riding whales waving at the crowd. Rick O’Barry and his Dolphin Project cured me of that dream that is really a nightmare for the animals. O’Barry, like Watson, has dedicated his life to protecting marine life and raising awareness of brutal dolphin hunts happening globally, and specifically in Japan, for the purpose of entertainment.

How much of what we do every day with our precious life force and finite natural resources is for our entertainment? Our consumptive culture is destroying the planet — and we know it — yet each of us continues to click and buy.

I’ve been thinking lately about what I really want: How much of what I do is just a distraction from feeling things I don’t want to feel? I am constantly reminded that, for me, a simpler life feels more in alignment, yet I get caught up in the inertia of doing things and making plans then it feels like it’s hard to stop or even pause. Sitting with the question, “What do I really want?” is important, and allowing the truth to emerge takes time. Once I realize what it is I really want, it’s up to me to use that information to make decisions, lest I be living a life unconsciously that isn’t really what I want.

I have to be disciplined to apply that filter to every decision I make. Is it leading me closer to what I really want or further away?

One thing I am inspired to do is more little things that add up to big things, like what Captain Watson has done his entire adult life, what Rick O’Barry has done, what chef Jose Andres who started World Central Kitchen has done feeding thousands and thousands of people in the worst crises we can imagine. All of these heroes started with just one boat, one direct action, one meal to a hungry person, and it grew. Passion and purpose together alleviating suffering. That’s a meaningful life.

Some of the volunteers who are called to these missions die for the causes. The founders soldier on knowing if we forget to care for the things we care to forget, we will lose sight of our humanity and the very thing that makes life worthwhile: caring.

We must all pay attention to these travesties of justice happening in our world. Captain Watson could be extradited to Japan on Sept. 5th where he will face a trial and likely be put in prison. We can’t let that happen. And we must lead with love even in our activism. This is a practice and something we desperately need in our performative politics and in our daily lives to save what is precious. Save the whales! And save Captain Paul Watson!

This post originally appeared in my monthly column in The Aspen Times.