Essays & Video Shorts

Do you ever see some kind of garbage wafting around a natural space and think "who would DO such a thing?" Confession number one: my son would do such a thing. A few years ago we were visiting a local swimming hole (yes, some places still have those). My then-14-year-old thought I couldn't see him up ahead of me making his way down to the river, and he brazenly discarded some bit of doof packaging directly into the shrubbery. He jumped about a foot off the ground when he hear

(Except for the stamps, come to think of it... I did generate new trash with the stamps, darnit!) Look, we all want to believe that we do "more for sustainability in one day than most people do in a lifetime,"* but the truth is... we don't. What we DO do (haha...) is tell ourselves soothing stories about why we don't. And yet! Unlike most other work in the sustainability space, I am not here to be a bummerfest. Last year, I attended a climate conference I attended where the

I was facing heavy resistance to taking my bicycle on the morning I shot this video. If I took the car, I could sleep for ten more glorious minutes, couldn't I? Was it really that big of a deal to put 8 more miles of private automobile toxins in the air? It was so cold outside, too! Maybe just this once... But I didn't. I got on my bike through it all. And wow am I glad I did. Life is just better on this side of things. If you want more WOW in your life, remember you're al

I used to be a globe-trotter, and proudly so. I thought that's what you did if you wanted to be cultured. And in all honesty, I'm grateful for those experiences. Why wouldn't I be? I'm grateful for all experiences I've experienced: the bitter, the sour, the salty, and the sweet. Yes, I was a purchaser of airline tickets back before I knew better. If you still fly, I know how hard it is to imagine why on earth anyone would want to give it up. The best way I can describe how I

You guys may have heard that Josh Spodek's sustainability aha moment came after he challenged himself to go a week without eating packaged food. Are you thinking what I was thinking when I first heard him tell the story: what in the world did you eat ? Personally, I've come a long way since then. I still buy doof, it's true. (If you don't know what doof is... it looks a lot like food and acts a lot like food but it's really not food at all; "fast food" doesn't quite cut it

Have you ever thought about the moment in historical time right before the washing machine was invented? I imagine the hard-working, hard-washing folks were sold slick stories that went something like this: life will be so much easier for you after you stop wasting all that time hand-washing your clothes! You'll have so much extra time on your hands you won't know what to do with yourself! Trust us. Happiness is right around the corner... after three easy payments of $$$$$. S

Hello to you! Glad you could join us. We've hemmed and hawed about starting a blog, and we finally decided to just DO THIS THING :-) So! This is where the Circle Game team is going to share our very real, very human journeys.. warts and all. We'll be posting very short essays and very short videos to help you through all those times you think you're the only one struggling with paper versus plastic :-) If you'd like to share a short video or essay of lessons you've gathered