Bursting the Bauble

It actually was a jewel in the constellation of tropical locations.  A place where one could pluck fruit from trees and grow anything by just sticking a seed or cut stem into fertile volcanic rich soil.  Positioned in a climatic and temperature comfortable goldilocks zone.  Paradise was as close to a reality as could ever be probably possible.  What on Earth happened along the road to, ‘how to screw paradise in a few decades,’ is open to endless discussion. 

What’s non debateable is an obvious and very measurable fact.  That whatever packaging wrapping marketing tools tricks and techniques employed over those very short decades, have produced a very spectacular and decadent nosedive of said paradise into the putrid pit of plastic purgatory.

Everything on Bali, apart from balance, is about beauty.  Be it fruit sculpture, painting, ceremony, geological diverse scenery, Balinese people and on and on and on.  Attractive was a naturally occurring rising phenomena, ergo total attraction to it and its endless manifestations.  That’s possibly probably what started the rot.

Bali is still very beautiful but it’s also creeping insidiously and rapidly toward ugly on many of its bits.  Perception is very much dictated by experience and for millions the perception of Bali as a great place is unquestionably real. 

So what’s the unavoidable reality as the Island currently suffocates in toxic tailings of commodity overload?  It’s those increasing satisfied numbers who will continue to drive balance and beauty to the brink.

So where does Tri Hita Karana sit in the fog of consumerism, positioned in the stench of wealth at all cost.

A very insightful young Balinese man explained that his Island was like a beacon, a beautiful bauble, a precious ornament, a shining light, an example to the world.  A micro model of how life could be.  The bauble has been marketed to impending death, wrapped and gaudily garmented in enough toxic plastic to suck dry any balance, Island body mind soul in crisis.

However, as depressingly micro mirrored on the reality of the ‘greater world’ Bali appears to be, there could be hope, maybe.  Leaving a belching super volcano aside, even though it has effectively pricked the bauble, bursting the toxic trajectory will take a combination of unpleasant crises.

If a toxic plastic filled ocean, fed from toxic plastic filled streams, emanating from toxic plastic filled villages and towns isn’t enough to bring life and its derived quality to a grinding halt.  Plummeting fresh water outlets and a shrinking water table will push health and well-being into a gut crunching retreat.  Add rampant competition for more and more of everything, human to human relationships will strain even more than they are right now.  Finish it all off with ash and there is nothing left to sell other than an Island full of trash.

It’s incredibly easy and so very convenient to blame Bali people for the state of Bali.  If only it was that easy.     

Like one of the most hideous and cruel fashion items ever marketed. Bali has for decades been treated this way.  Now oxygen is running out, water is turning rancid and plastic is poisoning the organism.  Bali is truly a micro of what is happening on a global scale. 

​One person’s precious bauble is another’s grotesque worthless plaything.