I have to admit. I am feeling despair. I think we all are to a certain point. The Amazon is burning because of one man's greed. We all know it because the fires started three days after the tribes were granted protection from him. But now it burns. And with it burning, the ability to produce oxygen. A substance that has been proven useful to human survival.
I know that each generation says their time has come. I know mine has felt it before in small ways. Nothing I ever believed was real. But there is something to this instance. A step too far to turn back from. I hope I am wrong. I do not want to die because there is not enough oxygen for us to breathe. Perhaps that is the point. A form of population control. More realistically though, it is the greed of a mad man who cares more about his bank account and feeding his own ego than the consequences of his actions.
Perhaps we have failed the world and now the world is going to reclaim itself. Like a friend who has been crashing on your couch for weeks longer than they said they would stay, the world has decided it is time we go. Maybe the madman was just a catalyst for what the world needed.
That said, I do not want to die. I don't think anyone truly ever does. Down to their last breath they try to cling onto this life. It is what we know. It is all we have. I do not believe in a magical place where we are with the spirits of our ancestors hopping from cloud to cloud with winged creatures playing miniature harps. Nor do I believe in the eternal fire of a torturous place that punishes us for every little thing we have done wrong. I believe that this life is what we have. That this life is more than just some test to appease some quiet observer who passes judgement down on us based on how much we follow his blind commands. I do not believe than any leader of any sort should call for blind faith and unquestioning loyalty. When that happens, inquisitions abound, holy wars happen, bombs are dropped, people are slaughtered by the millions, and our world burns.
I do believe that what we do in this life matters. What we do here is more impactful because I do not believe it is simply a test to something greater. I believe we have a chance to do greater things than any church would make us believe. I believe that a church who is genuinely just would be fighting tooth and nail to stop the fires. The money donated to rebuild a building would be diverted towards dousing the flames. I believe that the little vase thing in the video that was floating around Facebook that sucks the oxygen out of the fire in order to stop it needs to be made many, many, many, many times larger and many of them to stop the damage from spreading.
I believe that we have failed right when we were starting to succeed.
I hope I am wrong about some of this. I hope I am wrong and that the scientists who calculated the amount of forest that needs to burn before we all die were wrong and that we survive and can finally see the error of our ways. I hope I am wrong and that we live on. We forge a stronger future for all living creatures. I hope we realize the fragilness of our home and do everything within our power to protect it.
I have so many things I want to do with my life still and I, like most everyone else on this planet, will fight tooth and nail till the bitter end to survive. I think all of us will. Survival is in our nature. It is why we are still around. We are adaptive creatures who innovate ways to keep going. It is what makes us human. I just hope that those in postions who can invoke real change and make real move to save us do so. And do so without though to how it will make them look, or motivate their career. But do so because we need it.
They say art imitates life. Some argue that life imitates art. I hope that the latter is true because right now, we need a superhero. We need someone to do something.
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