Being compulsively curious with a short attention span I spend more time ‘down the rabbit hole’ than most. It would seem maybe I should be more focused on my achievements and credit rating but I missed that train. When Alice followed the White Rabbit down into its burrow she discovered a strange and surreal, even nonsensical world. I don’t know if it was by choice or by chance that I stumbled down that same rabbit hole but the situation there hasn’t changed. Like Alice, I feel like an alien in my own culture.
E.O. Wilson (Sociobiology) was one of the first to notice: Not until hunter/gatherer society gave way to cities, agriculture and living together in large numbers, about (7,000 yrs ago) that civilized priorities turned away from Mother Earth’s nurturing influence. It marked the beginning of civilized wealth & power with no inkling for the planet’s greater good. From down here in the rabbit hole, I can see how civilization is digging itself into another hole. In the 1986 movie Top Gun, the Air Boss was chewing hero, Tom Cruise, a new asshole. He growled, “Your ego is writing checks your body can’t cash.” Collectively I think we are writing checks our society cannot cash. Too bad for my descendants.
Dinosaurs ruled the earth for over 150 million years, and got wiped out by an unavoidable meteor strike. Humans on the other hand have only been around for maybe 2 million years and most of that time as an insignificant species, barely able to sustain themselves. Not until roughly 500 years ago (Christopher Columbus) could we have qualified as a significant species. Only in the past 300 years (Industrial Revolution & fossil fuels) could we be considered the dominant species. I will not allude to writing checks but I will observe; even baby birds know not to sh*t in their nest.
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