Thursday, July 16, 2009

What will we become?


“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”

~Maria Robinson







We are born into the light of the world in the same fashion with which a fighter jet is launched from the deck of an aircraft carrier. Harsh, loud, violent and not yet ready for what is ahead of us. Somehow technology manages to save us early and often.

We bumble through life as only an arrogant, blind creature can, with barely enough sense about us to keep from dying. Soft and fragile in a world of predation and sharp edges, we can not smell, see, hear or feel anything as keenly as the other creatures around us. We have ruled the planet far too long. Our awareness is diluted by our status at the top of the food chain and our comfort there. Our lack of senses allows us to thrive, rather than being forced to assimilate into the world and risk sub-exponential reproduction.

As we grow, what senses we did have as children begin to diminish even more, and the world becomes less like the playground we enjoyed, and more like a giant virtual shopping mall. Our sensory stimulation comes to us in the form of flashing colors and videos of other humans sent through energy waves into our private boxes in front of which we sit for hours on end. We call it work. We are lazy and pre-occupied, and we have forgotten that we came from our world. Instead we create new ways to enhance our distance from reality and consider ourselves clever for making our lives so much easier.

The ultimate irony: Humans believe they are superior because they create ways to escape the world around them. Is this truly superiority?

We focus on what our "quality of life" should be. We worry about how we compare to other people and their stack of things. Our vision becomes our greatest asset as we forget how to smell and hear and feel life. Somewhere this person so alive has become another drone. We are already dying.

This goes on for years. The majority of our time is spent "building" something, but do we ever know when it's finished?

We age. We begin to lose the ability to focus clearly on the stream of media with which we are assaulted, and we turn away. We can not follow the flashing images and words any longer, and we are forced back into the world which we so long ago turned our backs upon. The earth is different than we remember, what little we remember, but we find joy again in simply being.

Perhaps we look around and see things, truly, for what they are. Perhaps not. Perhaps we are bitter. Perhaps we see that even one more day to breathe the smells and sounds of the earth is better than no more days.

And as the shroud thickens, and our consideration of our ego fades, do we remember the tickle of the cold water on our feet, and the smell of the forest? Are we scared because of our frailty? Are we confident because of our humanness? Are we calm?

What will be important when nothing is important?

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