Thursday, January 28, 2016

Mindful Perseverance

Be Wary of the Human Flame
The planet we live on is being stressed by its occupation of more than seven billion humans and their lifestyles.  Over the past forty thousand years, the human species has worked its way to becoming the fastest world-changing living collective that the Earth has ever known. In that relatively short amount of time we have eradicated by intention and negligence innumerable species, including our hominid cousins, the Neanderthals. All this occured while we steadily transformed land, ocean and air spaces to serve the human whim with little to no long-term reflection.

Having emerged from earlier animal origins humans continue to be driven by inherited primal desires, emotions, and illusory needs.  Evolution dealt the human species a trump card, our minds, and we have used it time and time again against the environment, other species, and our selves.  Our saving grace is this very ability to transcend our evolutionary origins. In the same fashion that humans developed systems to more effectively provide shelter, water, food and technology, we also have developed ethical systems that idealistically reach beyond the default condition of our genetic heritage.

The challenge, of course, is to implement balanced ethical systems that guide human behavior toward a thriving, stable world.  In a thousand years the chaotic planetary chemistry of our own making may very well unmake the human species.  Within a mere million years thereafter the Earth would likely have moved on, pursuing interesting paths of its own devising.

It is in the best interest of humanity as a whole to ratchet up its ethical wherewithal to a level of mindfulness that encompasses the needs of a healthy planet.  The past is behind us, our wake of destruction spreading from horizon to horizon, yet the past is also our instructor.  With patience humans can persevere to work toward a better future.


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