While I was typing up this post, I wasn’t completely sure I would post it. It is very different from what I usually blog about. Rather than being amusing, it is more my musing on something that has been churning in the background of my brain, taking up space. I guess I hope that if I lay it all out in an organized fashion, I can let it go and let something else take up residence. Let’s call it a little experiment and go from there.
All my life, I have been fed the standard party line of how humans are the top of the food chain. We are the best this planet has to offer, we are in control, all the world bows down to us. Hmm. I’m not so sure I agree..
I think it is definitely true that humanity has a huge impact on its surroundings, but does that make us the ultimate organism on this planet? Just because we make a big mess and don’t clean up after ourselves doesn’t mean we rule the world, the same way a messy kid doesn’t rule the house for not picking up toys. In my experience, that same kid usually gets some grief from a higher being, namely the parents.
So if we are the top of the food chain, then who disciplines us for being naughty? God? The Master/Mistress of the Universe? The watchful aliens hiding out on the other side of the Milky Way? I haven’t seen evidence to suggest any sort of beings exist, let alone that they are a) interested in us, b) care what we do and c) have any plans to stop us from being complete morons.
That’s the problem when you are at the very tippy top – there is nothing or no one to help keep you in balance.
My basic understanding of worldly physiology is that our planet is composed of ecosystems. Within those ecosystems, everything has a place. It has a function, a purpose. A point. Not being fluent in the languages of flora and fauna (and therefore admittedly potentially mistaken), I assume that these ecosystem members don’t spend a lot of time searching for deeper meanings or higher powers or plotting to take over their domains. They just grow, reproduce, and die in an unending cycle that I find beautiful.
What, no tv? No music, gourmet food or talk radio? What kind of life is that? It is a simple one with no personal or social confusion that leads to all the crap that humanity dumps on itself and everything else on this planet.
But what about all the wonderful things that humanity has created over the millennia? What about all the distinct cultures, the languages, literature and art? No other organisms on this planet can do what we do – that must mean we are something pretty spectacular.
I agree. I think humanity IS a pretty wonderful thing – when we live humanely. We don’t seem to be able to do that very often. All those distinct cultures? Well they often lead to an ‘us or them’ mentality. They are exclusionary by nature. Language? There is no quicker way to wound another person than by lashing out verbally. Sometimes the mental scars go much deeper and last much longer than physical scars. Well what about literature and art? Sure, these can be wonderful things. They can also incite disgust, hatred, and intolerance in people. Religion – another human creation – uses literature and art to promote messages of redemption, but also (and more often) damnation.
I think the most wonderful and insanely terrifying aspect of humanity is its capacity to think abstractly. This ability is what truly sets us apart from any other living thing on our little planet. It is also what leads us to our greatest downfalls. Who ever decided that gold had value? Why is it more valuable than a clamshell? Somewhere, a long time ago, someone decided it was beautiful (and what is beauty if not an abstract idea) and therefore had value. Someone else decided there must be a deeper meaning to our existence and tried to explain the unexplainable and poof! Unseen religious beings spring into existence. Ideas of social organization are abstract – our country is itself just a big experiment in what humanity should be able to expect out of life. And look what we have done in the name of our number one abstract ideal – democracy must be spread everywhere, like it or not.
Ok, so what exactly is my problem? Why am I so down on people and what they do? Why am I ruining everyone’s day by being so damn depressing? The truth is, I’m not sure I can tell you that. I feel as though I have been living under a Charlie Brown rain cloud that follows me around, dripping one slow steady drop of harsh reality at a time. I guess I look around me and see how in my own relatively wealthy city there are thousands of homeless people on the streets, thousands of unemployed, too many people going hungry. And then there is the social intolerance – who really cares who marries who? Is your idea of marriage really so narrow that you can’t accept how other people find happiness? If my city, a supposed beacon of social reform and tolerance can’t get it right, then how can anyone else?
In my lifetime, I have watched news reporting become less and less informative and more gossipy. And as everyone knows, gossip is only good when it is about someone else’s tragedy. This means that just following the news tunes me in to how messed up this whole planet is, all due to humanity.
I don’t think of myself as a depressive person. I am by no means a bouncy cheerleader, but I like to think I am able to keep a clear head about most things. But it becomes a difficult grind when I begin to feel inundated by all the truly rotten things taking place every damn day. Why is
I think you get my point – we, humanity, are pretty F’d up. We do horrible things. And no amount of self-congratulatory speeches about all the truly wonderful things we are capable of doing can really counter balance that. So now what – should I just roll over and curl up like an old dead bug, legs stuck up in the air, ready to crumble to dust at the slightest breeze?
I don’t think so. Because, as sappy as this sounds, there is one last truly unique aspect of humanity that no other organism appears to have. Hope. The one thing released from Pandora’s box that can be more powerful than any of the harshest ills this planet suffers from. Everyday I have a little hope. I hope the sun will shine and burn off the fog – I need the vitamin D. I hope my day at work won’t be either too boring or too hectic, but just right, Goldilocks. I hope that my loved ones will be ok. I hope my city will stop running around like a headless chicken and start setting an example of how utopia could be. I hope the citizens of my country will stop pointing fingers AT politicians and start working WITH them to take our overweight, slothful, brain dead, couch potato republic into a brighter era. I hope those same politicians will pull their collective head out of their ass and start showing the world a better side of our country. I hope people on this planet can someday, somehow find a way to maintain individuality without destroying each other to prove superiority. And, most of all, I hope that we can stop taking our planet for granted. I really don’t want to be responsible for the end of the world, thank you very much.
Too gooey mushy slobbery sappy for you? Yeah, me too. But true, none the less. Thanks for letting me vent.
No comments:
Post a Comment