Pileated Woodpeckers, cardinals, baby peafowl ...
http://www.flickr.com/...
Nature always delivers. I never have to worry about finding beauty because Nature's supply of beauty is infinite and inexhaustible.
Humankind always delivers, too. Humankind's supply of unhappiness, stress, conflict, violence, destructiveness and sheer stupidity is also infinite though fortunately exhaustible.
The human era and all of humankind's suffering is coming to an end soon. Don't mourn, complain or cry for humankind. Undoubtedly this is a just end for such a self-destructive planet-destroying animal.
Thank God the birds don't think, talk or behave like humans. Could you imagine such a world? I'm listening to my neighbors brag about violence. Undoubtedly there is no cure for their illness. Undoubtedly there is no cure whatsoever for humankind's terminal illness.
Who will speak up on humankind's behalf? Who will plead for mercy for a species which has shown so little mercy?
Every time I see a bird I marvel that it has survived. Every time there is a fragment of wilderness clinging to life on the shoreline I marvel that it has survived.
But several years ago there was a dense stand of pine trees, a relic from the forest which formerly covered this entire land, and every day I passed it I marvelled that it had survived. The forest did not survive, though. It was one of the last victims of the housing bubble. There's some ugly condos on that land now.
The forest will come back. Nature's tolerance for human foolishness is nearing its end. Our civilization is crumbling away to dust and the Infinite Growth dogma of capitalism will die horrendously in the decades ahead. Infinite Growth is impossible on a finite planet. A species which builds its entire existence upon the doctrine of Infinite Growth will witness the failure of that dogma and it will suffer the consequences.
Humankind is headed to extinction and it is already too late to avoid that fate. Humankind is headed to extinction and Nature will accomplish this fate without mercy or sentimentality.
It is too late for humankind. It is much too late for humankind.
David Mathews
http://www.flickr.com/...