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Saturday, August 31, 2013

Perspective

I just saw this article about what is going on in Japan. Whenever I hear about how nuclear energy is considered "green," I am floored. How is something so potentially devastating allowed to be called "green?"

There is a lot of arguing about whether "Global Warming" is real. Many times the denial of the possibility is justification for doing something potentially - likely - harmful to the planet. And it is OK if it is the planet or the animals. It is not people, after all. 

Whether there is such a phenomena or not I really do not think matters. We suck as caretakers of this place we call home. We could do so much better, and our willful ignorance of the fact that we are not immune to what people do in other parts of our world - whether it is a block or an ocean over - has a way of coming back and biting us in the butt.

Earlier today someone called me "clueless" in response to an ad I have on a site for meeting people. I think maybe he might have meant unrealistic or perhaps idealistic. I do not understand why we have to play games. I call things as I see them. It frustrates me that others think that because things are the way they are, that is the way we should continue to interact with them.  

I am not clueless because I step back to question the things others say are or should be and neither are those people who sound the warning bells about our environment, food, medicines, vaccines, the state of our interaction with one another. It seems to me that those who criticize others who are really seeking better options - or at least potentially less harmful ones - might be standing on the deck of the Titanic in port encouraging others to get on board because they don't know what they will be missing by doing something different, while at the same time being disparaging about the fact that the choices of some did not allow them the choice to be on board.

Those who could not make the choice, and those who could have made, but did not make, the choice to jump aboard like others did are the ones who got to live another day without the terror of seeing others die in the icy waters, or having their own life threatened or cut short.

It could sound like I am judging other people's choices. Perhaps I am. However, I am also saying there is a lot we do not know and do not understand, or only think we do. And while there may be times we think we know something, it may be that we are headed for an iceberg and not know it. For that reason, if someone is unwilling to see things as we do, it does not mean we should jump aboard their ship. It might be we will miss out, but that might be a good thing.

At the same time, there have been a countless number of ships that have sailed on to create new opportunities - a la Christopher Columbus. 

How do we know which ship to board? 

I was watching The West Wing recently, and there was an episode that included interviews with former Presidents. One of them was President Ford. He made a comment about how when he was in Congress he never understood why the President's Office acted as it did. When he got to the President's Office, he did not understand why those in Congress acted as they did.

He was on one ship, and then boarded another one. He, like many of us, do not often understand something until there is some reason we need to understand it because it now affects us personally.

How much of our life is dependent on things we do not understand? How much of life itself is? I would be willing to bet quite a lot, and yet we all too often act with a blatant disregard for our home and fellow planet dwellers.

When the alarm clock goes off there comes a moment - perhaps after we have hit the snooze a few times - we only have enough time to get where we are going before it is just too late no matter what we do.

I really hope we don't get to that point as a people on this planet, but it surely does seem like we could be headed there.





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2 comments:

  1. How do we know which ship to board - indeed. There is certainly a lot we don't know and when we start doing things with things we don't understand - sometimes I wonder why we haven't found traces of intelligent life in space (i.e. radio transmissions, etc.) - could it be intelligent life self-destructs when it gets to a certain point? I sincerely hope not.

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  2. bookworm, I personally think that extra-terrestrial intelligent life is just that: intelligent, i.e. smart enough not to contact us yet. (Read Carl Sagan's "Contact" for an excellent representation of this idea.) And here's something that offers just a little hope for our potential to avoid the self-destruction: http://www.upworthy.com/a-bunch-of-young-geniuses-just-made-a-corrupt-corporation-freak-out-big-time-time-for-round

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