Mankind needed 800,000 years to reach a population of 1/4 billion, about 2000 years ago. This number doubled only 1700 years later. The first billion was reached by 1830. That number doubled twice in less than 150 years. That is exponential growth. There are now more than eight billion people. This statement in no way is intended to imply that we are running out of room on our earth. Far from it. We are running out of the will and ability to live properly upon this miracle by following the passive/aggressive nudging of people who profit from our billions. The consumption of our planet's resources is also accelerating exponentially, but by people who sell us what we have been taught to want and withholding from us that which we need.
While the human world has changed in some unprecedentedly good ways; the worst aspects of humanity have remained doggedly steadfast. As far as I can reason, there is only one constant. That of balance. For fifty years, when I turn on my television, I am told that my dollars will help to send powdered milk to the starving infant on my screen and buy some GMO seeds for his father, who has a disease. I am told that I need a new car, a trip to Mexico, a new mattress and whiter teeth. I am told that I need to shrink my prostate gland and I am encouraged to use Viagra.
I heard Stephen Hawking give a grave speech in which he advised the world science community to build a permanent habitation in outer space or to colonize another planet within decades. The news channels show me people killing each other everywhere. I learn about new diseases and new outbreaks of diseases that were previously conquered. I see the balance. I hear the discussions of politicians about each world conflict and the analyses of global markets by financial pundits and I see human nature, unchanged. It is a lot of information from which I must judge what is true, what is false and what is pertinent.
In my view, our current predicament is a product of fear. Vast piles of anything is a magnet for troubles of every kind. Greed, laziness and robbery are encouraged. This system demanded a manager to oversee the surplus and an army to defend it. Various political systems were developed to this end. People adopted symbols, such as money to represent food and other commodities. People began to crowd into towns to be near the storehouses. A new degree of separation developed between humans and the true source of their nourishment.
If we examine the human cultures that did not view nature as the enemy, we see a markedly different reality. People in all regions of the globe once lived in intimate contact with the planet. It is significant that all of these peoples considered humans to be the guardians of nature not the overlords of it. The idea that a human could personally own the land did not exist in many places. The populations of such societies were held in an appropriate balance by nature. This is not to say that we are not in balance today. Balance is constant.
Civilization, as I defined it earlier, magnifies the effect of fearful corporate hoarders upon the planet, which magnifies its counter-balance. Technology gives one person the effect of tens of thousands upon the environment. Even if the military/industrial/financial/political power elite of our time were inclined to solve practical human problems, their calculations would have to account for a dynamic out-sized exponential leverage factor.
The frightened of European and the rest of the planet have collided. When the students are ready, the teachers will appear. It is imperative that people heed human wisdom and knowledge that has survived into these times, wherever they live. Those we label aboriginals (with their knowledge and world view intact) are an endangered species. World power brokers are subject to the same fate as their adrenal hordes who fund their wealth and sustain their power by simply agreeing in large numbers to go along with their programs. We are all in the boat.
I can imagine a fate worse than extinction. The practice of putting people on mechanical life support systems, who would otherwise be dead, comes to my mind. Shall we attempt this with our entire biosphere? I think not. It is a simple and human practice to follow examples of people that make sense. Luckily, such sense is still to be found if you know where to look. To follow examples that make money, by contrast, only perpetuates the continued existence of an artificial system that is largely contributing to the destruction of the planet.
Whichever way it goes, I am proud and happy to be here together with everyone else. We may all give ourselves a hug and allow for the fact that we are barely out of the trees and our brains have not had enough time to find the sweet spot in their mutation/adaptations. Humans at their best are among the most beautiful, inspirational and noble life forms.
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