I don't want the day to end each day, though I know it must if it is
to start anew tomorrow. There are not enough hours in a day. Not enough
days in a year. Not enough years in a lifetime. Not enough hands on the
clock. Not enough time on my hands. This Earth orbits the Sun, which orbits
another mass of stars inside a galaxy cluster spinning in space, slowly
swirling about other galaxies. All in the grip of each others gravity. For
us though, it is a short ride; a mere few hundred million miles, or so.
At any rate, a trip spanning a human lifetime traveling the Universe on
the Good Ship Earth doesn't take you very far. Besides we're all just traveling
in circles, inside circles, inside circles.
I do not ponder the meaning of life. That question makes no sense to me.
It's like asking me what is the meaning of a tree? It doesn't mean
something as much as it is something. I think about what life is.
It is a constant source of wonder to me that some combinations of chemicals
and minerals are alive, others aren't. Some can get up and move around and
some can't. All living things consume parts of their environment, must have
some sort of rest or sleep, and they must reproduce. Not much more. Some
are capable of building some ingenious housing and some show some signs
of intelligence and even tribal organization but no animal could ever build
a Chevy or a computer or start a fire or invent something like a church.
It is what humans do with that three pound mass of gray matter that
amazes me. There is a long history of Literature, Science and Art that has
sprung from the minds of men. There have been astounding accomplishments
in Science and Medicine. The physical, cultural and intellectual monuments
in the wake of human civilization are astonishing.
Mortality is a must. If we all lived substantially longer the planet would
quickly become overcrowded. Besides, we humans are more or less immortal
compared to most other animals. The trouble seems to be that we all want
to live longer but we don't know what to do with the time we already have.
Either we're bored out of our minds because we don't know how to spend the
free time we have, or we don't have enough hours in the day to get in time
for ourselves because we spent all that time doing work for somebody else.
( So they could have more free time - that they don't know what to do with.
) It's not so much how long one lives as what one does with the time you
have. We are risking the future at the expense of saving time.
The question comes to mind; With all other things being equal, what drives
one person to dedicate their life to exploration and study, and another
person to dedicate their life to becoming a bump on a log? What moves one
person to be a Mother Theresa and another to be a Charlie Manson? Some people
sit around designing kidney machines while others are working on a new kind
of anti-personnel mine. On the other hand "all other things being equal"
in no way reflects reality.
One could spend a lifetime exploring one square foot of ground. One square
foot of anything. Take your pick. The closer you look, the more detail revealed.
It would be almost infinite in it's detail, complexity and beauty. One could,
that is, but should one? Though it may or may not be interesting,
is it satisfying, or rewarding? Or is it another big fat waste of time?
There is, in our government, a group of well-paid, allegedly super-smart
people who's job it is to figure out ways to make other governments not
work. In fact they've figured out ways to make all kinds of things not work,
not just governments. If we could only get them to quit working.
Things are only going to get worse now that they have the power of computers
at their disposal.
Some of us would like to spend all our time hugging trees and pushing whales
back into the ocean. They'd like to "Save The Planet". If we really
screw up the planet there will be plenty of wildlife left. There just won't
be any civilized life left. It's not the planet we will be killing, it will
be ourselves. We should spend more time tuning up our cars before we drive
to that next anti-pollution protest. This planet can take care of herself
and she can kick our collective ass any time she wants.
There is a lean toward fanaticism in our culture. People tend to go to extremes
in whatever field their interests lie. It takes place not only in sports,
music, religion and politics but in schools, television viewers and pet
owners. A fanatic turns a good thing bad. A list of the worlds foremost
fanatics can be found in "The Guiness Book of Records". It is
no where near a complete list but it is amusing.
Our purpose in life, the ultimate purpose, for all living things is to reproduce.
That's it, nothing fancy, our purpose is to replace ourselves. And, if we
don't keep mixing up our genes we'll all die off too. Variety is a necessity
for a species to survive, so much for the master race.
In the light of our ultimate purpose as a species, it is interesting to
note that most of our advances in medicine and technology (tools), those
things that prolong our lives and make life easier for us, have been by-products
of our war industries; the things that shorten our lives and make life miserable.
It's hard to believe we grew from a tiny egg inside another person, to a
full blown individual, just to spend our lives doing some of the stupid
stuff we call careers.
Way Out West © 1993 Martin Scherer. E-mail: mscherer@tesserak.net