I'm sure many of you have heard of that metaphor for the Earth's existence crammed into one day, but here's the gist of it: single celled organisms show up around 4am and do nothing for the next 16 hours. At 8:30pm, sea plants, and other marine organisms appear on stage, trilobites at 9pm, first land animals at 10pm, dinosaurs at 11pm, the first mammals at 11:40, humans at 11:58 and 43 seconds.
The point Mr. Bryson is making here is that life quickly existed "to be", but doesn't seem to want to "be much". "Its easy to overlook the thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point... we want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with. But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours - arguably stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock inthe woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don't. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment's additional existence."
Now I'm not suggesting that we just quit our busy schedules. Without the determination and long strides of the geologists on the idea of Uranium-Lead dating, we'd not have any idea about the length of Geologic Time, and therefore wouldn't have much perspective on which to ponder this thought that lichens have existed for much longer than we have. I'm also not suggesting that we all just be lazy, but there is some benefit to trying to find peace within yourself in "just being". Take a step out of your schedule, what other people have told you that you have to do, and think about what you are. A human lifetime, as important as it seems now, is so short in comparison to anything else; it is easy to forget that what exists now, is not all there ever will be, and not all that ever was. What you are a part of, is a species that has managed to eek out a niche for itself in the present organization of life on earth.
And what are we doing to our niche? We are changing the variables that allowed our species to flourish in the first place. All this debate about climate change is not a debate that we are "destroying the environment" - though many people still write this. We are simply changing the variables that allow 6 billion of us to live on it. An environment on Mars or Venus is still an environment - just a kind of environment that makes it very hard for humans to continue to live in the manner that we live now. An environment with epic droughts will destroy our large and complex food supply. Of course, food will still exist, but not in the quantities necessary to feed 6 billion people - and the transition will let some of us starve in the meantime. An environment with higher sea levels will leave large amounts of the continents still above land, and certainly habitable, but by flooding coastal cities, especially large ones like Miami and New York, will produce millions of refugees for the time it takes those people to get their lives back in order in a new location.
Plenty of humans will probably still be able to exist even if sea level rises 100 feet, but the problem with this from a governmental policy standpoint is that you can't rally behind policies that will eventually produce enormous hardship for a large chunk of your citizens. The rich will probably still have the ability to provide for themselves, even in the face of large catastrophes, simply because they have better access to resources. (Remember house/senate congressmen and women make $174K per year, much more than many city-averages of $40K/year).
It seems that the easiest way around trying to anticipate impacts to our current way of life is simply denial. If you don't think that greenhouse gases might melt ice caps and flood our coastal cities, then its a potential problem you don't have to waste energy worrying about. If you don't think you are ever going to be robbed at gunpoint, then you probably have never considered learning self-defense. Its easier, in this sense, to put up some effort in saying that it won't happen. And Al Gore thinks its not your fault, citing human nature in his current article in Rolling Stone Climate of Denial - "...since human nature makes us vulnerable to confusing the unprecedented with the improbable, it naturally seems difficult to accept."
If we as humans are to model the lichens and "just be" in whatever capacity for years to come we have to consider the idea that our endless quest for wealth and prosperity might eventually get us in the end. The denial of climate change is fueled in a large part by oil companies that have the money to support their own special interests. Their goal is short term and incredibly self serving- make as much money as possible before they retire, so they can retire to some tropical island... and... just be?
In the words of whoever writes the script for the TV show "The Big Bang Theory" Sheldon says, "we don't HAVE to do anything. We have to take in nourishment, expel waste, and inhale enough oxygen to keep our cells from dying. Everything else is optional." Clearly, this is all what lichens do (though, as photosynthesizing algae or cyanobacteria, they inhale CO2 and not oxygen). As humans, we do more than that. We have the imaginations that are able to consider what happened before we were born, what happens when we die, and what might happen to our childrens' childrens' children. All of our actions, both greedy and generous from our birth to our death, influence the future outcome of our species. Whatever else your "optional" is, take a moment to consider its place in the world. Does it align with larger goals that allow our species continue to exist? Or will the lichens continue to out-live us?
And don't forget the power of the average person - large national and world problems may seem daunting, but again here is a reminder from Al Gore's article (which is concerning climate change, but is also applicable to other issues):
- "You can start with something simple: Speak up whenever the subject of climate arises. When a friend or acquaintance expresses doubt that the crisis is real, or that it's some sort of hoax, don't let the opportunity pass to put down your personal marker. The civil rights revolution may have been driven by activists who put their lives on the line, but it was partly won by average Americans who began to challenge racist comments in everyday conversations."
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