I’ve been around long enough to be less and less knowledgeable regarding what goes on on a daily basis in our world. Lately, my eyes have been opened to newer and less recognizable activities and pastimes. The longer I’m around, the less I know what is going on. I believe that getting old is a two edged sword. That goes without saying. If I reflect deeply enough I become frightened and depressed. By the way, I also believe that quarantines of many days forces us to reflect and that is why we, as a general population, get snarky, snippy, and depressed in the process.
Generally speaking, the human species is brilliant. Look where we have come since we slithered out of the mud during our early years. From the mud flats to the moon to sending sophisticatedly engineered contraptions on million mile adventures, exploring what only our minds can devise and wonderments we wish to observe. Mind boggling stuff.
The picture is not simple as all that though. Personalities exist in complicated groupings and styles that change and switch loyalties seemingly randomly. How in the world do we even exist in this day and age? Maybe our run is coming to an end. We may have been fooling ourselves that human existence is guaranteed. I believe that we are done. Cooked. Finished. Sayonara. We are too big. Too smart for our own good. Tonight I wrote a note regarding the duality of human resilience. Here it is:
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” Sir Walter Scott illustrates our self-entrapment in dishonesty in the poem “Marmion”. From the discovery of making fire to screwing up global pandemics. We are a brilliant but complcated species. Something happens to the human brain, mind, thinking process as it gains power and control of others. There is a ‘fail’ mode that comes along that can’t be self-corrected and will not listen to reason. This appears to be our downfall. It is exacerbated by our numerical population gains. Crowding in cities, living conditions and the like mimic those laboratory rodent experiments. We form Mandelbrot Sets on acid. It doesn’t take long for us to destroy our best intentions with our insanities. Brilliant but complicated may be too kind.
That’s all I’ve got. My best hope is that the human population self-limits by the rise of viruses and wars until we reduce our numbers to more easily manageable sizes. So, here’s to grim statistics and ugly endings. I hope some gentle and clever people survive as well.
Peace,
Gentle George
May 17th, 2020
Playing Fair and Being Kind 