Pacing: Torch-on Product Dilemma

A couple of weeks ago I was in conversation with a good friend of mine who works to repair machinery, both mechanically and electronically. Having just finished his education on the island, he has returned to the mainland to take up a job offer with a manufacturer near our hometown.

This manufacturer makes torch-on roofing product. Besides the product itself containing tar and other hazardous materials, the method of production is fossil-fuel intensive, as is the installation of this product. While not an explicitly destructive product, it is not the most environmentally sound way to make a living. To say nothing of the big-box, warehouse-type buildings that the product is primarily used on.

So my friend is generally well-paid, in a supportive company that provides opportunities for growth and learning in the trade itself, as well as other areas (he is able to go to Quebec to learn French through his company), but there is a piece of doubt and guilt sitting undigested in the pit of his stomach. During my pacing today I've come to recognize this as spiritual sickness.

He sees what he is participating in as sin, though he would never call it that, non-religious as he is. So the question for me is: how does one treat a malady that the sufferer doesn't have ways to admit. I patently refuse to simply point out the ailment as I see it because that would be divisive. I need to be able to find a shared understanding of it in order to have terms to talk about it in. But is that understanding pre-required for effective treatment? I think it might be. What is important to remember is that it is probably useless for me to try to get a person to discuss something on my terms. This means I need to learn how this person frames their world before I can help them frame a problem, let alone see a direction to move.

I'm certain this particular malady is not the sole territory of my friend. In fact, I had the very same dilemma during my time working for an ESL school in Taipei. I was participating in a system of privilege and dishonesty. This was a major contributing factor to my leaving the country, among a few others. Although, at my work, I did find a few opportunities for doing good, I never did find a way to reconcile what I was participating in with what I believed. Never did find peace without sacrifice there.