What's It All About, Alfie?
Here I am, just one of 6.4 billion humans, living on a Big Blue Marble that's floating through space. The Human Story has so far been interesting. I often wonder how it's going to unfold. Like everyone else, I'll only be on this Planet for a short while, so I have no idea how it's all going to end.
As I drive to work or as I lay in bed, I often try to figure out "what it's all about." One thing I know is that studying history provides a big piece of the puzzle, so I spend much time watching the History Channel and reading up on the web. What I see from, say 10,000 years ago, is an interesting human progression. As I see it, the human scenario will end in two ways: We will either experience unprecedented success and populate the barren Universe, or we will become extinct in the next 100-200 years. That's all there is to it.
All my life I've been a futurist, and I've dreamed of humankind's destiny. What a joy it will be to travel the Universe, set up colonies, and expand our civilization infinitely. Space is really the ultimate goal and the ultimate joy for our species.
Getting My Head Out of the Clouds
Whew, it's wonderful to dream, but when I come back to Earth I see an ugly, complicated, BIG mess. Humans are a dysfunctional lot and seem more bent on self-destruction than on progress. We humans are destroying our environment and reproducing ourselves with reckless abandon, at the expense of our Planet's health. Without question, I think the number one problem facing humankind is premature overpopulation. By "premature" I mean, yeah, sure, one day we can have trillions of people but only when we can begin settling the Galaxy. Right now, our Planet cannot support infinite growth without doing two things: hurting other species and harming the biosphere that supports us (possibly permanently). We just can't seem to get it into our head that the size of our family has a global impact. We simply can't make the connection between cute little babies and increased traffic congestion and rainforest destruction. "Oh, MY CUTE LITTLE BABY isn't causing these things," we say as we hold little junior into the air. "NO, NOT MY KID, DAMNIT!"
The Second Biggest Challenge
The number two greatest problem facing humans is our pre-programmed dogma. We just can't seem to get our ancient beliefs and habits out of our head, even though they are causing us to walk head-on into a wall. It's really time for us to pull all this crap out of our brains and start all over again. Now, granted, there is a lot of good collective knowledge and ideals that we've collected over the years, but we've also accumulated a lot of destructive garbage. We really need to sit down and sort things out, and say to ourselves, "Now, what is good for the community and the future, and what is hurting us and holding us back?"
Of course, religion is a huge part of "pre-programmed dogma." We've created these religious stories and characters to personify all the great things we have learned, like "love one another." But at the same time, we all use our religions to beat each other over the head. Religion provides yet another excuse for us silly humans to fight, judge, murder, and basically do bad things to one another. In short, religion sucks.
Other Challenges
Somewhere over the past hundreds of years we've gotten this crazy idea that we are above all the other animals. As a result, we've disrespected and abused the millions of other living species that we share the Planet with. Now, I'm not saying that it's wrong to eat other animals because it's not. But it's damn sick when we push other species to extinction or we poison their habitat to the point where they are sick and miserable. Now, for those of you who are always looking for a good sin to point a finger at, well, that's a BIG SIN. It's WRONG! Please don't pull out some Bible verse out of context to try to justify it because species destruction is one of the most horrible things that we humans are doing. Yes, it is genocide.
Along these same lines, within the last few decades we've lost our connection with nature. This is the greatest, heartbreaking tragedy of all. We've created this massive, climate-controlled environment and we rarely get outdoors. We've filled out lives with tons of trivial busyness, and as a result we no longer take time to enjoy a sunset or the twinkle of the stars. We fill our lives with rented movies without realizing that we our numbing our soul in the process. We no longer appreciate nature, and what's worse, we don't respect it. This is the greatest problem of all with modern humanity, and losing our love for nature may very well lead to our destruction.
This quote really sums up my thoughts today, and it's so true:
"In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we have been taught."
— Baba Dioum, Monterey Bay Sanctuary
