Wow, what a puzzle it has been since I began trying to "figure out life" in 1997. Life is like an onion, and the more I peel away the more layers I find.
Lately, I've been giving a lot of thought about evolution, and how it may provide more answers than we realize. In my opinion, evolution was the theory that literally turned the world upside down. Once the Theory of Evolution came out, people started talking about Social Evolution, Economic Evolution, and to this I add Religious Evolution. It seems like everything evolves, often in ways we cannot predict. But what I do believe is that everything must follow Darwin's evolutionary laws, such as Natural Selection, Survival of the Fittest, Mutation, etc...
Thus, what I'm thinking today is that the whole secret to understanding our future might be understanding our past. By understanding how and why we evolved with certain characteristics, we can better understand ourselves, and, perhaps, where we are heading.
I just watched another documentary last night on cavemen, and the life our ancestors led was incredibly difficult. Perhaps this is why modern humans value comfort so much today. I also learned that all of us were once black, but the group that left Africa to settle in Europe changed both in skin pigment, culturally, and in other ways as well. Maybe that connects to the poor way that the whites have treated the blacks throughout history -- maybe we are seeing ourselves in a mirror and we don't like what we see.
As for believing in the Theory of Evolution, this took a lot of time, reading, watching the History Channel, and even having chats with a couple of scientists that I met. To me, Evolution is now as natural and as much of a fact as anything else in nature. I have a renewed interest in animal life because, well, I'm related to them. I love to observe all other life forms, and I am finding that other animals really aren't different than ourselves. Maybe if we saw the animal kingdom as relatives, maybe we would respect them more. This is not an argument for vegetarianism, but rather an argument for not driving other species to extinction.
If we saw ourselves as simply cave people with a few modern conveniences, if we saw ourselves as a part of nature instead of the exploiters of nature, and if we viewed animals more as equals, we might start changing the destructive way we live.
Oh, yes, and by the way, this is the entire purpose of my blog and website -- to explore all aspects of long term sustainability. Particularly, I am interested in studying human behavior, for unless our current behavior changes, I believe we will destroy ourselves. This really doesn't bother me, but I do believe that it's quite possible for us to do irreparable damage to the Earth, and that worries me.
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