Humanity has misunderstood its reason, if it ever had one.
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| We emerged from primordial slime and then benefitted from near ideal "Goldilocks-like" conditions. |
We are a problem solving species and that is something at
which we have been wonderfully effective, but interestingly some of the
resultant solutions have produced seemingly unresolvable unintended
consequences.
In solving problems we have, it appears, frequently asked
the wrong question.
The questions were driven, and still are, by survivalist
instincts and base human emotions from which we have never truly escaped.
Humanity, generally, is still somewhat childlike, grabbing
selfishly at most anything that goes by, but with little thought for others,
always seeking immediate gratification and within that caring little about what
tomorrow will bring.
The idea that is maturity has been distorted in being
applied to trivialities, rather than being used to honour the steadfastness and
wisdom of some, particularly experienced and older people.
That however, is in itself contradictory, as wisdom,
experience and age do not necessarily equate, but it is where wisdom, something
which is short supply, is most commonly found and so we should not be
uncomfortable or embarrassed about turning there for help or advice.
Humanity has scrambled for, and fought among itself, for
earth’s resources, whether land, oil, people or whales, but in expanding its
understanding of how to exploit those assets, it is locked technologically into
an apocalyptic way of living.
With scant regard for tomorrow, justified by hollow and
shallow rationalisations, we have battered the other into submission, plundered
earth’s finite resources, privatized the profits and socialized the costs,
while leaving behind the mounting residue of our less than honourable behaviour
to accumulate in and so have filled up the earth’s environmental sinks.
Being simply the fortunate bonding a few elements in the
primordial slime that benefitted from ideal conditions, we did not really
evolve for a purpose nor was there any real planned reason, rather driven by
species survival we simply capitalized on whatever came our way.
That was fine until we evolved to exceed nature’s capacity
to cope and so now we must voluntarily moderate our behaviour and live within
our environment’s finite bounds.
For millennia, the entire Holocene, we have been favoured by
near ideal circumstances – Goldilocks-like temperatures of not too hot or too
cold – but undeniable science illustrates that what is a massive human
experiment is going wrong.
Never before has mankind been so close to the precipice and
rather than compete in a search for endless growth in a finite world, we should
step back, think about, understand and benefit from the social warmth, trust,
co-operation and help between fellows that appeared to be the locus of the
recent floods and fortified by that comforting reassurance, build and shape our
reason.
Considering that, we have much to do.
