Spiraling Down
Posted by Raul on July 9, 2010
The area where I work is a new one; it used to be countryside until it was covered by houses and streets just a few years ago. It was a natural habitat for rabbits, foxes and coyotes…now the bigger animals are gone and only rabbits remain.
Without the dangers of predators an easier, safer life for the rabbits has created an overpopulation of those cute creatures, so they now can be seen in big numbers in front and back yards.
Maybe because of this safer habitat, after a couple of generations rabbits have started to show signs of “stupidity” They don’t run as fast as before anymore; they run in any direction, including the wheels of the approaching vehicle, getting killed instantly without giving reaction time to the drivers.
The same situation happens with any specie that finds the elements to easily multiply itself out of control. So is happening with the human race.
People used to know how to drive in snow with an older car without FWD, 4WD, ABS, TCS, airbags, etc, now they easily crash even having all that aid and all the teaching videos available in the net.
People used to find their way around in the cities and long trips using a paper map, while now many depend on a GPS system to not get lost.
I might be sarcastic or cynic, or whatever classification you want to give me, but I really don’t believe in changing people’s minds and turning the cards; that could have been done from the beginning.
The more knowledge accumulated by the human race, the more technology created to increase the living standards of people, the worst the situation becomes. Sure, we live more comfortable and safer than before but, is it better for the planet?
We are after all another specie in this planet, and no matter how advance individuals might be, as a race we still behave as many other species, so the reduction in population and the change in habits to stop the planetary destruction will be all coming as a consequence rather than a planed course of actions. We start saving after we experience a traumatic lack of money.
This entire civilization is based on trade rather than knowledge, so the mentality is about physical and material growth instead of knowledge or spiritual growth. You are valuated in proportion of what you have more than what you are.
In a personal level people can be valuated for who they are, what they do and how they do it, but in society as a whole is not; how many people would be happy to show a picture of themselves with a president, even if that president was considered a dictator? Showing the others a possible personal relation to the big dogs!
Insisting in better behaviors like recycling is fantastic but doomed to fail. It is not just the monetary interests of some few in power, but the laziness of the majority that screams for justice and new practices but remain in the old ways that maintain the status quo of things.
A politician says and act based on what he/she is allowed by the people that refuses to take action by themselves and prefer to blame those in power for all the problems instead of changing their way of life.
Wars wouldn’t exist if people refuse to go by principle, and if that principle was a planetary concept, there’ll be no need for having military forces. In that situation just the proposal of creating a military body would be considered so…anti-human! While throughout history it always has been an honor to serve in the forces!
Big sport utility vehicles still sell while small European style cars are nowhere to be seen around. If conservation is so important for some, how come that the same people waste water in their front lawn?
Changing to sensitive practices implies changing the way of life and stop giving importance to elements like luxury, possession and overstuffing as a reference of success in life and turn to forgotten curiosities like dedication to family, self cultivation and the enhancement of the human part within.
We all know that, we just cannot make it happen as a race to an extent bigger than the promotion of the good practices. So just like the bills come after the impulse shopping, the tag for the planetary use will be handed out and nature will recover of the “day with a fever” to become again what it suppose to be and the human race will be back at the beginning striving for survival.
I’m not saying people have a bad nature, by the opposite, we can see how many are searching inside themselves for the right path; I can see it while reading blogs in the net, and it only means deep inside we all know we must be in the wrong path now and we know things suppose to be in a different way.
If the houses in the area where I work were to be removed it’ll become a disaster for the rabbit population that lost the sense of survival after so many years of easy life; they would die by big numbers and the few survivors would bring new generations of rabbits better prepared to survive while coexisting with the foxes and coyotes.
It’ll be hard for the human race again, but it’ll bring balance in nature and a new opportunity for the human race to start a civilization based in knowledge and self growth where human interconnection is the base of such civilization, rather than trade and wealth as the main references for success.
Raul
