BALANCE AND IMPACT

 

BALANCE AND IMPACT

Writing Energy & Origin was like a watershed moment in my life, an eye opener if you like.  It made me look at life, at everything in and around us, from an entirely different perspective.  Like blinders being removed.  I have added a third addendum to illustrate through various articles and essays I have written that it is our impact that makes all the difference.  Does it explain everything?  Of course not.  But hopefully it will pique your interest and I am positive that you can come up with plenty of examples and stories of your own.  My aim is to reach a wide audience, ordinary, curious people, intrigued by the human journey and where we are headed.  Why bother with writing a purely academic tome that most people wouldn’t even finish because you would run out of patience and interest.  I am probably an academic at heart, but this particular subject is too important to limit to academic minds only.  As a writer, a lifelong student of philosophy, history and the humanities, I have come to appreciate the fact that most readers are highly intelligent.  I have faith in everyone who reads my work and rather than regressing into pompous verbosity and literary craftsmanship, I prefer to write with clarity.

ORIGIN IS IMPORTANT BUT WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW IS WHAT IMPACTS!

The human mind is rather limited in what it can store and retain, and although we’re improving in the artificial storage department, our understanding will continue to lag behind; rather embarrassingly so.  We continue to defy our limitations by stubbornly ignoring the forces of energy and momentum.  That somehow we’re in charge of our destiny.  We are in control!  We decide!  It is not my intent to denigrate our species into a flawed product of evolution with an inevitable nasty outcome, but to highlight how we’re constantly impacted by forces beyond our control.  And it is fight we’re losing.

Evolution is about what works, about what is possible and not the opposite, turning the impossible into possible.  What humanity is attempting to do; subduing the planet to suit our intent and desires, is not only pigheaded and stupid, it will be our undoing.  Life is about balance and impact and adversely affecting one or the other will be disastrous.

A simple example is that of the blue whale, currently the biggest living mammal on the planet, reaching lengths of 33 meters and weighing as much as 190 tons.  It also survives on a diet of krill, one of the smallest crustaceans around.  It doesn’t eat anything else.  Sharks on the other hand love to eat large fish species and can you imagine what would happen if sharks were the size of blue whales and with an appetite to match?  Within no time flat the ocean would be devoid of life.  Such is the marvel of evolution.  It is all about balance and impact.    

Planet Earth has gone through massive periods of extinction.  Five according to scientists, paleontologists, and people specializing in earth sciences.  Cynics predict that a sixth extinction is well underway and it is a manmade one.  Not too farfetched as the writing is on the wall.  When it comes to impact and balance we’re not a good fit.  Extinctions were either caused by celestial events like meteorite impacts or through sudden cataclysmic changes on earth.  Extinction is part of life and millions of species have come and gone.

IT’S ABOUT IMPACT

Earth has shown a remarkable ability to bounce back after each calamity.  Key to survival is impact.  Size or appetite are irrelevant, it is impact that makes all the difference.  In the natural world that has dominated planet Earth for billions of years, life is about diversity and symbiosis.  Evolution creating systems that are beneficial and complimentary.  There is no room for excess or gratuitous consumption and everything within nature is constantly recycled and renewed.  There is a kind of order that provides for a continuation of life.  Not that nature is not constantly confronted by challenges and setbacks, by extinction and natural disasters.  The natural world appears to run along what works.  It adapts.  A wonderful sense of order despite appearances to the contrary.  It is eat or be eaten, fight or flight.  But there is no unnecessary killing or consumption.  Everything has a purpose.

WE’RE NOT EVEN TRYING TO FIT IN

We have turned into the great disruptors and we don’t fit in.  We take, consume, destroy, kill, extirpate and we constantly change our immediate environment to suit our needs, wishes and whims.  We build, pave, dig, erect, neglect, abandon and destroy.  Our monuments may loom large, even impressive, but when viewed within the light of what has been destroyed to make way for our ‘achievements’, it is rather embarrassing.  Every day we waste, discard, litter and abandon.  We have turned into parasites, devouring the host we depend upon for survival.  It makes no sense at all.

The natural world is about balance, surviving and adapting, not dominating and destroying.  Nature is not about artifice but about fitting in.  Nature doesn’t erect monuments to dead elephants or invests in museums celebrating species and their ascent or bemoaning their extinction.  No hidden agendas or the contemplation of mass destruction and all out war.  What takes place on a daily basis serves the moment.

In Energy & Origin I stated that it was perhaps inevitable that within the natural scheme of evolution, sooner or later a species would evolve with a slightly higher level of intelligence that would allow it to dominate and exploit everything around it.  And have we ever!  Within a timespan of a few millennia we have upset the applecart like no other species has ever done before.  We have left behind a massive swath of destruction and have caused the extinction of tens of thousands of species and tens of thousands more are threatened to follow in their path.  We appear deaf and blind to out excesses and to our numbers. 

Earth is a celestial miracle.  We know there are billions of star systems and planets, but the odds for something similar to have taken place elsewhere in the universe are like one in a trillion or more.  We have won an incredible space lottery and like so many people who strike it rich with a sudden win, we splurge through our winnings like a bunch of drunken sailors.  There is no magical escape pod or a planet B waiting in the wings.  This is a magical and protective bubble that protects us from the worst space can throw at us.  We appear blind to the benefits that this floating miracle in space affords us.  It allows life to thrive and survive.  Evolution took a bad turn when a slightly higher level of intelligence encouraged some apes to leave the safety of the jungle behind in exchange for a life as uprights.  Life is about balance and impact and our impact has been disastrous.  We have destroyed balance!

EVOLUTION AND DESIGN

All lifeforms are the product of an evolutionary process and not all lifeforms are successful or long lasting.  It is about fitting in, about circumstance and sometimes pure happenstance and dumb luck.  There are no guarantees.  Species come and go.  Balance and impact.  Increasingly we’re turning into a casualty of a design that is too flawed to remain enduring and successful.  Our potential demise and suffering may seem prolonged and taking forever, but within the greater scheme of things—within the continuum of space—we are but a burb, a hiccup.  Our concept of time within the infinity of space is totally inconsequential.  Humanity’s higher level of awareness makes it a bitter pill to swallow.  A change of heart, a change of ways or an orderly retreat is not in the cards either.  It would require too many outstanding qualities that we’re simply not capable of.

BEWARE OF NEGATIVE ENERGY

Energy created life.  Life is energy.  Energy can be negative and positive.  Energy can be released in an orderly and benign fashion or it can bundle in incredible intensity and disperse with an explosive release.  Negative human energy has been bundling in intensity for several centuries and each time the release is more intense, explosive and destructive in scope.  More and more people are caught up in a daily struggle to survive and within this environment we’re not reaching for positive solutions.  Such is the true impact of energy and momentum, of origin and consequences.  Ignore balance and its importance and the impact will be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Reverse engineering is not part of the evolutionary design.  There is no going back.  We’re a flawed design.  There you have it!  Life, enjoy it while you can and make the best of it.  In a good way!  In a mindful way.  Chip away at the negativity and insert some positivity instead.  Be the answer!