Each day I go from the macro to the micro...
from trying to change the future of life and humanity,
to changing lanes in a crowded freeway among a million other drivers scurrying here and there...
from reaching for the stars
to reaching for the bananas in the vegetable section...
but then, isn't that what it is about...
There is something divine in us, something of a Godseed...that allows us to live the
lives of ants and apes and yet reach for the stars.
To ignore this is to ignore destiny.
And it is Our destiny, unique among living things on this world,
to be able to create a new destiny, to choose among futures,
to be able to kill and to create,
to turn away from possibility or step boldly into it and thus change the destiny of all the life around us...
an ant is born ant, will live and dies as an ant
doing exactly the things ants have done
since ants became...ants...
an ape is born an ape, into a culture and life that is of being an ape,
and will do what apes have done
since apes became...apes...
But we, we are born each day into a newly created world, where what we do is changing sometimes in the moment.
Our lives have commonalities with the lives of the first humans,
but we swim under the seas like fish,
we fly in the skies like birds,
and step beyond them all to rise above and beyond this world to where there is no life
so that new life might arise there.
It is maddening and yet perfection...and probably the point of it all...
I would counsel that we not forget that we also have the potential for much evil within us. We should remember that Hitler was a man just like us. We loose our temper, have biases, show greed in subtle ways. There are those who would clone a child before we know how to safely do that...just because it can be done. Some have written that it would be fine if humanity were to go extinct if replaced by something more advanced...something not even of ourselves. They say it is the natural order of things.
ReplyDeleteBut we have the responsibility to be stewards of what we have in our hands and not just the right to do as we please.
I'm not all that worried about the darker demons within us. They are losing the battle with each succeeding generation. Look at the statistics for violent crime. They have been trending down and in some places dramatically down. Even with the wars of the 20th century, it was still safer to be a live human being in Europe then than it was several centuries earlier. Back up a couple hundred years and the average life expectancy in the richest nation then roughly matches what it is in the poorest, most war torn nation today. We eradicated small pox from the planet just a generation ago. Many of us today have to work hard to find someone we know who has lost a child younger than five years old to disease, hunger or any of the old killers.
ReplyDeleteWe are on the verge of being able to educate EVERY child.
Things are getting better.
We even know why.