Extinction Spasm

¡Hola! Everybody...
Tony has a heart condition and a problem with obesity and yet he (excessively) spends his time online threatening people.

Just recently, he attacked someone here by divulging shared intimacies as a way of attempting to humiliate that person. If he does this to someone else, what makes you think he won’t do it to you?

You’re a real man Tony...

SMH

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-=[ Species Extinction Spasm ]=-

The new world is not only possible, she is on her way. When I am quiet I can hear her breathing.

-- Arundhati Roy

I was laughing along with some friends about the whole e-thuggery phenomenon. Almost none of my friends are on the internet and they think the energy I put into the “blogging thing” could be better put to use actually writing. Well, blogging helps me write. If I didn’t blog, I probably wouldn’t write. I am lazy.

Anyway, laughing about what kind of person would go to the extreme of threatening bodily harm to another human being on account of something as irrelevant as a blog, made me think about the very real crisis we’re all facing as a species. We may very well be the first species to make ourselves extinct. And it’s this type of thinking -- this narcissistic wish fulfillment of doing harm to others, that is at the crux of our problem.

Anthropogenic global warming is a fact and it has some of us thinking. Recently, I read an article stating that basic human needs are destroying our planet much more quickly than previously thought. The article cited a four-year multinational study, “The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,” which found that humans “have ruined approximately 60 percent of the earth’s ecological systems to meet our demands for food, fresh water, timber, and fuel.”

Research shows that we’re in the middle of the fifth or sixth largest species die-off in biological history. What naturalists call an “extinction spasm,” which to me evokes an image of the earth purging itself of unhealthy organisms.

It appears that we do have something to fear and it is us.

I would ask why, but I think I already know. We can’t handle our technological advancements. It’s as if evolution has given a child a loaded gun and we’re playing with it with the safety off.

When I reflect on this mindset, I am reminded of the paradox of the egomaniac with low self-esteem. It’s how I used to describe the addictive personality, but I am confronted with this narcissistic behavior too often, and I have to wonder if it doesn’t apply to our society. The issue at hand today, ladies and gentlemen, is that we have to do something. If crisis is danger mixed with opportunity, then opportunity abounds!

Many of my friends were moved by the last election to decide to become more politically active, through dialog or local politics, and that’s where we all have to start. Each of us has our own temperament, but we engage we must. Perhaps your way is to picket an oil company. Others may fight to save an endangered coral reef. Maybe part of the challenge is bringing back as sense of awe and reverence to everyday life. So you might want to engage in some nature-loving pagan ritual. Go ahead, hug a tree, or bow down and kiss the earth.

We race around in these little boxes of steel, chasing after instant gratification and in the process we’ve forgotten our own humanity.

Stop... look... listen... breathe.

I have one suggestion that I think will help the most and you can begin to implement right now. Here in NYC, some companies give away tiny squares that unfold to a large map of the NYC subway system. It’s the size of a credit card and not much thicker. What we need in order to save ourselves is keep a bigger perspective in our pocket, just like the NYC subway map. A big perspective that you can unfold in your head at a moment’s notice. Too often, I see comments in my blog and from people in the real world that betray a singularly selfish perspective. We seem to have lost the ability to understand things from a larger perspective. “Don’t bail out the auto workers!” we screech, resenting the fact that as small business owners, we’re not getting any “handouts.” But if we were to hemorrhage all those jobs, who would buy your services/ products?

We seem to want to demonize those we see as different, forgetting that in denying a gay or lesbian couple the same rights we enjoy erode our own rights. Too many are willing to allow tens of thousands die simply because we want to cling to the concept of health care as a privilege than a basic human right. We decry taxes that could make our schools better, but are blind to the taxes that funded the land-mine some child in some far-off land just step on...

This very moment... and the next...

Think! Or rather, think differently. Think with the larger perspective. Consider -- from a more panoramic perspective-- that denying others their rights erodes yours. Think that if we all would stop using plastic bags, it would have an immediate and tremendous impact.

We need to hold a big perspective to remind us that nature is one tough bitch, and life has so far survived the collision of continents, mountain ranges erupting in volcanoes, murderously cold ice ages, the plague, your ex mother-in-law and even Bush Jr. (well, the jury still out on that last one).

The Big picture also carries your inner understanding that you are part of it all, and so are they (<--insert anyone you hold resentment towards: immigrants, blacks, whites, men, women, etc.). My father had a great phrase he used to describe people he didn’t get along with, “friendly enemies.”

This is a species-wide problem -- we live in interesting times with plentiful opportunity and need to act wisely and with compassion. If your Big Picture doesn’t include a Bigger Love then we’re doomed for sure.

Love,

Eddie