Friday, January 30, 2009

On Cynicism and Hope

We stand at a crossroads. A crossroads where attitudes divide. A crossroads that allows us to choose a new way of interacting with our government, our planet, our species and ourselves.

There is no doubt that the past 8 years have put an unsightly blemish upon the demeanor of the human race; it is upon those who cared for the preservation of the planet and those who cared for retaining the status quo. Both, though this may seem impossible to both camps, were doing what they thought was right. Some acted from greed, but most acted from fear.

We have a right to fear. The very ground we have worked so hard to concretize (literally and figuratively) is crumbling beneath our feet. The economy is disintegrating, we will soon deplete the planet's supply of fossil fuels, species are dying out at a rate exceeding any mass extinction for the past 60 odd million years. Our planet is warming, the seas are dying... the list goes on and on. We have a right to fear.

Yet there is another side to this truth. Yes, we are responsible for the destruction, there is no denying that anymore. The facts speak for themselves. In facing this truth the human species has fallen to blame, cynicism, negativity, hopelessness and has forgotten the miracle of what it is to be human, to simply be alive. We are in the midst of another Copernican Revolution. The prevailing concept of our place in the universe is irrevocably altered and we have still not caught up. We are not alone in the history of Western thought, though. We must think back to Copernicus' time, Galileo's time, where a heliocentric view of the universe was scorned by the most brilliant and the most humble of the population. Something that is held as so commonplace an idea as the Earth moving around the Sun was once so preposterous that only a handful committed to the idea, even amidst the scorn and ridicule of those who were most revered. Quantum physics has revealed an impossible (and most inconvenient) truth, a truth that science has for so long held as a maxim that it has become cliche: There is no free lunch, i.e. you can't get something from nothing. This has now been proven false. Every moment there are billions of particles springing into and out of existence in what we once thought was a vacuum. Creation is happening as we speak. Like magic. Life itself is magic. And this, I believe, is a view point that has the potential to change our relationship to the planet, the universe, and, most importantly, to each other.

If only we could hold the idea in our hearts that we are (literally) all cousins in this species. We have all sprung from the same star, from the same energy, from the same ever-present origin. None of us is any greater or any less than any other... we are simply cousins. The miracle of life that is within us, is within the tree outside your window, in the common housefly busily living its flash of existence against the pane, in the lizard warming itself on a rock in your garden and in the invisible particles springing into and out of existence all around you. Which brings me to Hope.

Through our own guilt, or blame, we have fallen to denigration of the human species. I have heard it referred to as a cancer, a blight upon the Earth. That the Earth would be better off without us so the sooner we cause our own extinction the better. This is obviously not helpful thinking. All one has to do is think for a moment of our amazement at watching a bird in its courtship ritual - clearing an area for an intricate dance - or of a school of dolphins joyfully diving and twirling through the air for no better reason than it feels good. We think of a puppy coaxing us into play or a baby taking its first steps and we know that there is something powerful in the world that must be preserved. Perhaps it helps to remember that it is that same playfulness and connection with the numinous quality of the universe that we hear when listening to someone sing, play the guitar, dance, paint a magnificent piece of art or make us laugh. I think it is still possible to allow ourselves to be fascinated and enlivened by human beings.

I was having a wonderful conversation with a new/old friend (thank you Facebook) who said that, though he is still wary of any form of government (Obama included), he feels now a sense of relief that he no longer needs to be "fighting back". For the past 8 or more years we have been holding back the gates at the onslaught of mindless disregard. We have taken on the tactics of our "enemy" - Fear. An environmentalist is probably the last person anyone would have wanted to have over for dinner, as the dinner conversation would have inevitably eroded into how many new dead zones there are in the ocean due to global warming, or how unprepared we are for the ensuing riots when we finally run out of oil. The "We're all going to die" speak has never to my knowledge made someone get up from the dinner table feeling enlivened to take action to organize a community garden. If anything it causes quite the opposite reaction: I'm going to now sequester myself away in my bomb shelter with enough food and water to get me through the holocaust. Hope is why over 300,000 people applied for work in the Obama administration. Hope for a realization of humankind's greater capacity.

Humankind has the capacity for greatness, luminosity and elegance. We are the same matter as the hawk, the whale and the redwood. We are that same miracle of life and we have the ability to be self-aware - a blessing and a curse. But perhaps that self-awareness is simply the universe looking back on itself, evolving, changing, allowing a new consciousness to dawn upon humanity. One that, instead of alienating us - as the Copernicans did - unites us and draws us ever closer to our potential.