If one values human experience one must conclude that we are indeed fortunate to have ever existed at all. It took a certain very peculiar set of circumstances for it to have ever happened in the first place, in both cosmic and quantum terms, and there have been millions of factors militating against our survival from day one...that is true both for us as a species and for all of us individually. That humanity ever came to be, much less that we for a time flourished is perhaps the great wonder of the universe. OTH maybe the evolutionary dance between biochemistry and circumstance leading to the advent of intelligent life is not such a singular event and has occurred millions of times in millions of places and in millions of ways. And maybe humanity’s not the apex of intelligent life either. One never knows. It is a big-assed universe and a lot can happen in 13.7 billion years.
My son has amazed me for all of his life at the lessons he has absorbed, intended and otherwise, those he has returned and those he conjured up himself. I have had many of those ‘child is father to the man’ moments and they have made me a better person (such as it is). One of his contributions to my education is the notion that even if it all comes to a sorry end, it’s been awesome. Sad, difficult, disappointing, sometimes not much fun at all? Sure. But all in all it’s been awesome. The mere fact of our existence is a mathematical inconceivability...as best we can tell. The fact that we can take such great joy in our existence and have such a profound life experience is just gravy...though it is a mixed bag to be sure, this life. No one gets out alive and we all pay our dues.
Despite our many shortcomings (as evidenced by our penchant for war, greed and hatred), humanity has achieved much. From the time we first learned to use fire and knap stone to the era of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Large Hadron Collider, it’s been quite a journey. It’s amazing that we managed to overcome our base instincts, our savage selves, sufficiently to form civilizations and produce great wonders of art, literature, science and technology. It seems a great pity that we failed ultimately to curb our savagery, and that that failure may seal our fate.
We tend to think of humanity as this on-going concern that will continue well into the distant future. That it’s ‘always’ been means it’ll ‘always’ be, but it ain’t necessarily so. For the first time in human history we’re having to come to terms with that fact. We have very much come to a point in time where if we don’t play our cards right, we’re goners. So far it’s not looking good for us either.
Sometimes I wonder if it matters, why anyone should care so much. What’s so great about the humans? Beyond the species-centric self-interest, what is there compelling about this species that makes its loss tragic? Why should anyone care?
"I sometimes like to help the humans."
Kosmo Kramer
The thought I keep coming back to is, ‘What other creature knows the universe the way that we do?’ Through us, as Carl Sagan would say, the universe is coming to know itself. Once we’re gone, when next will this universe hear the voices of poets?
To see a World in a grain of sand, And Heaven in a wild flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand. And Eternity in an hour.
William Blake
All the Hemispheres
Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out
Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new watermark on your excitement
And love.
Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.
Change rooms in your mind for a day.
All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.
Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.
All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting
While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.
the Sufi poet, Hafiz
When next will the universe be so eagerly explored?
When next will be heard the songs of minstrels?
Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
Dylan
When next will the universe be painted, interpreted, imagined and re-imagined by great artists?
Some say our first mistake was agriculture. The more people you can feed the more people you’re going to have as it turns out. We are the soon-to-be victims of our own success. We have been too clever by half and not nearly wise enough. We grow enough food to feed everyone and yet people starve. We are altruistic and compassionate yet we slay each other, at times with great abandon. How like angels we would be if it weren’t for our tragic and fatal flaws.
"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world - the paragon of animals!"
from Hamlet by William Shakespeare (Act II - Sc. II)
But alas, we are hopelessly flawed - however angelic, angels we are not. Still somehow we succeeded in improving ourselves and lifting ourselves up for quite a few millennia, albeit with some notable backsliding here and there along the way. Progress was typically slow and painful but progress we did. Apparently that’s over now. We’re progressing in science still, thank what gods may be, but in most every other way we seem to be either stagnant, paralyzed or hurtling backwards.
A society fueled by greed seems an odd thing to me. It’s all driven by the notion that you too can have more than your neighbor. All you have to do is work hard, do as you’re told and hope you get lucky. What a scam. Ours is a culture of fourth graders vying for the marbles. One can never have enough. And never mind the needs of your neighbors.
Oh well.
I’m sad and I’m sorry about the way things have turned out. When I express my remorse to my son in apology for what he’s being left with, he reminds me how awesome it’s been. So many struggled so hard for so long to change the tragic trajectory of our culture, but in the end we were swept before the tide of history. Our revolution is over. The humans lost. And the corporations will soon devour what is left. This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a corporation.
The earth will get by without us I suppose and will no doubt eventually overcome the damage we’ve done during our stay. There will still be great sunsets, presumably, and what life we don’t manage to exterminate will go on without us, presumably. Personally I hate to think of earth without an Eddie C to capture and celebrate the sunsets, but no doubt the rest of the animal kingdom will be relieved to see us go...though it’s just as likely I suppose that they’ll never notice.
Dogs and cats might miss us for a little while. At least until the sound of pet food cans being opened fades from memory.
We were good for something after all.
In the mean time...
It’s been awesome.