The Inconsequential Capacity of Human-Willed Catastrophe (524 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 1.1 on 10 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Kyle Copland <yazatas.at.allofyourgodsaredead.com> (View user info) at 2008-11-30 20:35:47 EST
I was freefalling through the sky and plummeting down to what appeared to be my hometown splayed out below. One hand clutched a handle on the quintessential A-bomb I was straddling while the other spun a cowboy hat in the air as a fell to oblivion a la Dr. Strangelove and as the nose of tipped downwards I got a better view of my home below.
When I thought how strange it was all reality seemed sapped of colour as though I was in a black and white TV I began to suspect I was dreaming and when I saw Imperial AT-STs in a firefight with an Abrams tank shooting globs of lava and several humvees backing it up on main street and what appeared to be a fleet of luminescent UFOs landing on the field behind my old high school my suspicions were confirmed. Such a surreal sight I was fortunate enough to savour for a few seconds until, nose tilting further down, I realized the ground was coming up fast and was slammed with consciousness just as I would've blown to oblivion.
~
I was thinking about the dream I had last night at lunch today and it led me down this general train of thought:
Society is reminded so frequently of the looming threats of total obliteration and universal destruction of life in the form of Global Warming, Nuclear Winter, SARS, the Rapture and super-AIDS by the unavoidable source of the media. World War III and otherwise universally-affecting global catastrophe is feared and thought to be the worst thing that could happen, but the truth is this planet has been through far worse than anything that humans could presently bring upon it: the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, tens of thousands of years of being locked in cyclic Ice Ages, the magnetic reversal of the poles, millions of years of atmospherelessness accompanied by incessant meteor bombardment and in the first place solely existing in the form of a spinning sphere of molten matter frothing with the churning contempt of unsettled mass finding order within itself. Despite all of these occurrences, each of which being infinitely more damaging or intense than the most destructive event humans could perpetrate, the swirling blue marble whose inhabitants call it Earth has been led through all such darkness and destruction unto its present state, one of global habitation and lush, vibrant life in every corner of it.
If humans destroy the world and civilization is ripped from the face of this planet like a clotted scab covering the elbow of a clumsy toddler, it will be replaced with something that results from the same process that brought it to fruition. Pending the method of extinction the resulting circumstances will pave the way for an entire new world to take centre stage as a different organism or biological structure or form thrives and propagates with things changing with the same drastic extent of the denouement of the dinosaurs that lead to present day. The epoch of the cellular age has long since died, the glory of the reptile's age is a distant memory and when the dawn of man gives way to its sunset at night, perhaps the barren wastelands that a Nuclear Winter brings about will cause the rise of the Insects or maybe even the avians. The more drastically altered humans leave the world, the more radically different will be what comes to replace them.
Societal demolition is feared and it's forgotten that the death of the self is as consequential as the death of the species and that accordingly, super-AIDS and the Rapture need only be feared with the same extent (if any) as for one's immediate vicinity's consistent security and that one's personal well-being is successfully sustained. The circumstances of life are always in the form of being relative to individuals as life is only present in living physical organisms and not as some floating trans-dimensional conscious-yet-selfless ether creature that goes about solving mysteries and befriending child-Samaritans in an old Volkswagen van.
The absolute significance of the circumstances of life therefore becomes defined solely by the extent to which they pertain to the self.
If one does not believe in God, then there is no greater organism, no societal being or creature above one's self to which tragedies can happen; the death of a million is the same, in consequence, to the death of one because its only one death happening a million times and the collective loss of a million people doesn't compound. One can't experience more than their own single death and as living things can only experience occurrences in the physical world, the gravity of the torturously slow and agonizing deaths of fifty political dissidents isn't something that can be considered as exceeding one's own two minute episode of terminal cardiac arrest.
The death of the individual is exactly the same as what should be feared, expected and considered in moral terms of severity and extent as the extinction of the species or the "destruction" of the Earth. Once the self is dead, any abstract consideration of the severity or extent of the loss of the species or any other thing or concept that carries some measure of importance is as equally alive as the individual that believed it.
Suffice to say, humans take themselves far too seriously when it comes to postulating on the magnitude and importance of their actions. Nuclear winter is seen as the end of the world, as Global Warming as that which could undo so much of what has been accomplished, of super-AIDS as that which could rape this planet of all life down to the algae and random prokaryotes that form the very base of our world, but all this is ok because regardless of anything that happens, things will be ok. Time heals all wounds.
What has been proven by our mere existence is that life can and will crawl out of any niche the seed of it is nestled in; essentially that life is a constant and will never be truly destroyed. Regardless of what horrors and events are scheduled for this planet one can rest assured that life, that Mother Nature, will bounce back, spring up and flourish like a vibrant flower blooming from the compost heap of whatever barren world or ruinous landscape is left to her.
It's a comforting thought to know that there is nothing an individual, or any number of individuals for that matter, can accomplish that will have a lasting, permanent effect on life in this universe.
User Reviews
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2008-12-01 19:20:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by RestrictionsApply (user info) at 2008-12-01 09:38:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by BigBuffty (user info) at 2008-12-01 08:20:12 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
so you have aids right? fag
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-12-01 07:39:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
A bit hard to read due to some of the long GBOT-like paragaraphs. I too like the sentiment. A fine first post. Bienvenido a Uber.
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2008-12-01 00:18:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I liked the title.
Then I read three lines and got bored.
Such is life
Submitted by Chroniclysm (user info) at 2008-11-30 22:32:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Phallic_Cymbals (user info) at 2008-11-30 22:30:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
The sentiment was ok, and I liked the conclusion, but the writing was a little bombastic and could've been brought back a little: It seemed a little "High school paper"ish.
And while I consider the nature of life based on your post I ask you to consider frankthebear's face as he throttled out a pathetic wad of atrophied semen onto whatever bloated prostitute allowed him 5 minutes of her time.
Submitted by DonkeyOnTheEdge (user info) at 2008-11-30 22:15:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Sure.
Submitted by SilvrWolf (user info) at 2008-11-30 22:09:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very capable.
Welcome to Uber.
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2008-11-30 20:56:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment