[Epilogue] Melting Point: Planet Iceland series

(This is the final installment of the Melting Point: Planet Iceland series.)

한국어 버전을 보고 싶거나, 이야기를 계속해서 받아보길 원하시는 경우 아래 페이지로 이동해주세요.
(작가 블로그 가기)

What difference can one person make?

I don’t remember when I first said this.

But one thing is clear.

There was a time I never said it at all.

Water pollution. Ozone depletion. Global warming.

There was a kid who ran to his mom in tears every time the news came on.

He drew environmental awareness posters every year.

Nobody asked him to, but he’d march around the entire neighborhood picking up trash, turning every walk into a one-man cleanup campaign.

That kid never once thought, “What difference can one person make?”

Then, as he grew up, that kid slowly disappeared.

More accurately—I erased him.

Middle school. Bring up the environment, and you’d get that look.
“Here he goes again. What a weirdo.”

By high school and college, I’d learned to build smarter excuses. Science gave me the perfect shield.

”We’ve already passed the tipping point. It’s a systemic problem. What can one person possibly do?”

A cynical nihilist.

That’s what I’d become.

The truth is, I was probably just scared.

I’d been mocked for caring too much.

I’d been laughed at for being too serious.

So I chose the excuse that nothing would change anyway.

Maybe it was just the easiest path I could take.

And then I told myself I’d become a responsible adult—one who at least had his own life together.

The Delusion

I carried that delusion—I didn’t even know it was one at the time—all the way to Iceland.

“Maybe I’ll get a nice Aurora photo.”

I’d been sold on the pitch: rare destinations, real experiences, budget prices.

A workcamp was just the cheapest way to travel.

But then,

the glacier’s tombstone stared me in the face.

“Only you know if we did it.”

My chest dropped. But out of habit, I raised my shield.

“Yeah, it’s sad. But it’s already too late.”

An eighteen-year-old kid from the Netherlands told me, eyes gleaming, that he wanted to build houses that could survive rising sea levels.

I was in my thirties, a PhD holder, still figuring out my next paycheck.

My questions were aimed squarely at my own survival.

His were aimed at the future of humanity.

I stirred my cocoa and thought:

“The question I folded away—that kid still has his unfolded.”

A night when the Aurora refused to show. I was playing board games in the cozy common room.

But something in me kept reaching for the door handle.

The old me would have done the math: “It’s freezing. Someone else will check and let us know.”

But that night, I opened the door. The Aurora was right there, rippling just overhead.

One person’s small movement became twelve people’s Aurora.

At the edge of the world, in a snow-covered wasteland, we stood before an abandoned cabin and picked up our hammers.

Through the acrid dust, I muttered, “Why are we even doing this? A professional could knock this out in a day.”

But when I returned to the lodge and sat in front of the heater, it hit me.

Without someone else’s thankless effort, this warmth wouldn’t exist either.

The Aurora

I’d first set foot on this land as a savvy consumer—rare experience, rational price.

But Iceland had been asking me the same question all along.

“How long are you going to hide behind ‘it won’t make a difference’?”

Every small step toward a dream I could have taken—

I’d been dismissing with a lazy “Why bother?”

Iceland was calling me out.

Running away from the looks. Running away from being the odd one out.

Ah—the one who erased that earnest kid wasn’t the world. It was me.

And then, questions I never expected to face.

“Who are you?”

“What have you actually done for the things you claim to believe in?”

Maybe the kid who cared isn’t dead after all.

Yeah, I still don’t know if the world will change.

But when one person changed, twelve people saw the Aurora.

A shelter for whoever comes next got a little closer to being built.

Iceland speaks to me.

Take one step.

You won’t know until you try.

“Only you know if we did it.”

[Series — Melting Point: Planet Iceland] End.