All my life I’ve had a pronounced sense of foreboding that the end of the world is coming and in fact, might already be underway. And now, wouldn’t you know it? It is. Coming to an end, that is. The world which Jesus proclaimed “without end,” is coming to an end right now, at least for our line of creation — the people, plants, animals, birds, fish, insects, fungi, microorganisms, amphibians, reptiles, and all the rest. How could it be that I happen to be here now, I, who love the world so much, especially creation, nature, the ten thousand things. I feel cheated in a way, the victim of unfairness on the part of the cosmos, or karma, or whatever force or energy brought me here at this time.
I’m also very annoyed that we’ve done this to ourselves. Perhaps we’re not the first. Plato knew legends of Atlantis and they were long before mankind first rose out of the caves and mud huts and took up the mantle of civilization. But to what extent has civilization helped us?
Lao Tzu says “Banish learning, discard knowledge: People will gain a hundredfold.” Mankind acquired great learning, knowledge, and technology, but did nothing with it but war and destruction. The more mankind lived outside of nature, the more mankind and nature has suffered. Mankind finally achieved full technological maturity and in 100 years, has come to the brink of destroying the entire planet, from the creatures that make up the ten thousand things to the very water on which we depend for life. And yet our arrogance is great. We think we can prevail, somehow, by our own ingenuity, forgetting that we are only creatures like the rest, dependent on the planet for our sustenance.
Alas, we are not nearly as smart as we think we are. There are fruit flies smarter than us.
