Today we had some errands to run and as often happens, were greeted by the smog that hangs over LA and surrounding areas. And, as often happens, the conversation died away and we looked as it loomed and we thought all the things we tend to think when encountering this thing we created. It is indeed our child, and it waits silently for what comes next.
It blots out the sun.
Next year will be 2010, the year the human population is supposed to reach ten billion. There's a fair chance that for human beings to carry on long-term, most of the ten billion will need to disappear. Some people believe this has happened before, but I've never seen or heard any convincing evidence of this, regardless of how many geek-out hours I've spent listening to science channels while I work.
We are evolving. We live longer. This is no accident, and may serve us well. Or not. We seem to use the time given us less productively, on the whole. Technology is growing rapidly. There are pros and cons. Are people less intelligent than previous generations? More intelligent? I don't know. I do think it's likely that primitive man was smarter than Hollywood would lead us to believe. I also think C. M. Kornbluth was a visionary. Are his marching morons upon us already?
In the grand scheme of things humanity is still in its infancy. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter one iota what you do, or what I do. Evolution will meander along its own crooked path. Why is it then, that some of us feel so compelled to help human evolution along? What is it that drives some of us to do that one thing we do and to foist that thing upon the rest of humanity? To even care about a future we personally won't be part of?
What difference does it make, why? Possibly it's because as a whole, as an organism made of the human population, it takes all kinds.
It takes all kinds. Idealists and nihilists. Writers and artists and soldiers and couch potatos. All sorts of genes, all colors and shapes and sizes and visions.
So it seems the best plan is to find which we are and to be that.
So we look at the smog, or the melting glaciers, or the change in weather, at poverty in Afghanistan and Tennesee and we think all these things. We ask, again, these big questions.
What can I do? Am I helpless to affect this situation? I certainly feel helpless. Does it matter?
We talk it over, again. Then we see an Arby's sign. Fuck yeah! Five for five. We're starving, we say. But of course we are not.
Pretty soon, the smog is at our backs and we're headed into the clear dry air of the desert. We've abandoned our monster child without a backwards glance. But the little ghost remains---accountability.
So we'll acknowledge this child as our own, at least on some level, and do what we can. We are bigger inside than out. We are the makers of whatever future comes.
And. Sigh. We are small creatures. My stomach is growling, again.
It blots out the sun.
Next year will be 2010, the year the human population is supposed to reach ten billion. There's a fair chance that for human beings to carry on long-term, most of the ten billion will need to disappear. Some people believe this has happened before, but I've never seen or heard any convincing evidence of this, regardless of how many geek-out hours I've spent listening to science channels while I work.
We are evolving. We live longer. This is no accident, and may serve us well. Or not. We seem to use the time given us less productively, on the whole. Technology is growing rapidly. There are pros and cons. Are people less intelligent than previous generations? More intelligent? I don't know. I do think it's likely that primitive man was smarter than Hollywood would lead us to believe. I also think C. M. Kornbluth was a visionary. Are his marching morons upon us already?
In the grand scheme of things humanity is still in its infancy. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter one iota what you do, or what I do. Evolution will meander along its own crooked path. Why is it then, that some of us feel so compelled to help human evolution along? What is it that drives some of us to do that one thing we do and to foist that thing upon the rest of humanity? To even care about a future we personally won't be part of?
What difference does it make, why? Possibly it's because as a whole, as an organism made of the human population, it takes all kinds.
It takes all kinds. Idealists and nihilists. Writers and artists and soldiers and couch potatos. All sorts of genes, all colors and shapes and sizes and visions.
So it seems the best plan is to find which we are and to be that.
So we look at the smog, or the melting glaciers, or the change in weather, at poverty in Afghanistan and Tennesee and we think all these things. We ask, again, these big questions.
What can I do? Am I helpless to affect this situation? I certainly feel helpless. Does it matter?
We talk it over, again. Then we see an Arby's sign. Fuck yeah! Five for five. We're starving, we say. But of course we are not.
Pretty soon, the smog is at our backs and we're headed into the clear dry air of the desert. We've abandoned our monster child without a backwards glance. But the little ghost remains---accountability.
So we'll acknowledge this child as our own, at least on some level, and do what we can. We are bigger inside than out. We are the makers of whatever future comes.
And. Sigh. We are small creatures. My stomach is growling, again.
