Rides, ramblings and rants on a motorcycle.
- We are scientists, too!
8.12.2007,8:23 PM
Why??
Every time I return to the city from a trip in the country, the rural areas, the canyons, desert, wilderness I feel like an alien. Another ant in a giant colony of more ants following blind trails leading everywhere but 'home'. And for what? I ask myself that question constantly. For decades.
It's a paradox. I see people in small communities or living in remote rural areas that have formed a partnership with their environment. They generally don't take more than what they need to subsist, and they try to nurture that which gives them their food, health, happiness and life. They are happy with less.
In the larger metropolitan areas, the cities, we take and take and never give back. And we treat each other likewise. We want a never ending "More!".
Then I look around me and see what we as a species are capable of accomplishing: beautiful giant buildings, ability to travel anywhere on this globe, music that makes one's heart sing or cry, art and literature to share our experiences, thoughts, history, ideas with each other and with millions, capable of healing diseases and illnesses that would have crippled our civilization, and so much more.
We are an amazing organism, a species like none other in the entire history of this planet. Our potential is boundless. We love, laugh, cry, birth, die, create, destroy, calculate, climb to the stars and outer planets. And we are suffering at our own behest and folly. What we consider as 'progress' is self-deceptive; we are decaying.
We propagate to the point that we suffocate ourselves and this planet with our very own and extract all we can from the environment that sustains us, which served as a foundation for our evolution and growth as a species and civilization. We accumulate more and have less, wrapped up in our own individual reality drama show. We destroy that which gives us life.
And I've wondered, asked, contemplated, tried to understand all these years: "Why?"
How can we be so blind?
I recall pondering this when I was young, living in a city and its suburbs. I fled the city to the woods in Maine to try and understand. Decades later I am still fraught with the same observations and questions. And I fear there may be no answers. Moreso that the meaning of the question has lost it significance not for me, but for everyone else.
While watching the first episode tonight of the TV mini-series "Battlestar Gallactica" (2003) -one of the most brilliantly written series on television- I was struck hard, almost physically, when Commander Adama gave a speech in commemoration of retiring the battleship. It rang true in nearly every aspect of our history and our relations with each other, our environment and all the other living entities on this planet.
"You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question "Why?"
Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed and spite, jealousy, and we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done, like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. And when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really.
You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore."
His speech was delivered just hours before nearly the entire human civilization was annihilated by what they had created.
A possible prophecy rang true and hit me as if I had been struck by a rock.
Is this our path? Not in the stars or in space, but here...... on this planet. Our Home.
It's a paradox. I see people in small communities or living in remote rural areas that have formed a partnership with their environment. They generally don't take more than what they need to subsist, and they try to nurture that which gives them their food, health, happiness and life. They are happy with less.
In the larger metropolitan areas, the cities, we take and take and never give back. And we treat each other likewise. We want a never ending "More!".
Then I look around me and see what we as a species are capable of accomplishing: beautiful giant buildings, ability to travel anywhere on this globe, music that makes one's heart sing or cry, art and literature to share our experiences, thoughts, history, ideas with each other and with millions, capable of healing diseases and illnesses that would have crippled our civilization, and so much more.
We are an amazing organism, a species like none other in the entire history of this planet. Our potential is boundless. We love, laugh, cry, birth, die, create, destroy, calculate, climb to the stars and outer planets. And we are suffering at our own behest and folly. What we consider as 'progress' is self-deceptive; we are decaying.
We propagate to the point that we suffocate ourselves and this planet with our very own and extract all we can from the environment that sustains us, which served as a foundation for our evolution and growth as a species and civilization. We accumulate more and have less, wrapped up in our own individual reality drama show. We destroy that which gives us life.
And I've wondered, asked, contemplated, tried to understand all these years: "Why?"
How can we be so blind?
I recall pondering this when I was young, living in a city and its suburbs. I fled the city to the woods in Maine to try and understand. Decades later I am still fraught with the same observations and questions. And I fear there may be no answers. Moreso that the meaning of the question has lost it significance not for me, but for everyone else.
While watching the first episode tonight of the TV mini-series "Battlestar Gallactica" (2003) -one of the most brilliantly written series on television- I was struck hard, almost physically, when Commander Adama gave a speech in commemoration of retiring the battleship. It rang true in nearly every aspect of our history and our relations with each other, our environment and all the other living entities on this planet.
"You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question "Why?"
Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed and spite, jealousy, and we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done, like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. And when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really.
You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore."
His speech was delivered just hours before nearly the entire human civilization was annihilated by what they had created.
A possible prophecy rang true and hit me as if I had been struck by a rock.
Is this our path? Not in the stars or in space, but here...... on this planet. Our Home.
