{"id":1874,"date":"2020-06-02T11:30:26","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T18:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/essays.rsree.com?p=1874"},"modified":"2020-06-02T11:30:26","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T18:30:26","slug":"an-uncertain-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essays.rsree.com\/index.php\/2020\/06\/02\/an-uncertain-future\/","title":{"rendered":"An Uncertain Future"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Galaxies in the Milky Way<\/p><\/div>\n

Given what we think we know about the age of the universe,\u00a0 planet earth and the myriad of creatures that have and are continuing\u00a0 to inhabit it since\u00a0 life first appeared,\u00a0 we have arrived only recently\u00a0 as a species uniquely capable of reflective thought and reasoning. With it \u2013 I suggest \u2013 came the potential to make something of ourselves beyond being just another species for which\u00a0 the need to survive\u00a0 and ensure the continuation of its genus appear to be its main objectives..<\/p>\n

On that premise we find \u00a0ourselves at the receiving end of the implicit obligation to go beyond \u00a0these basic needs, and \u00a0not only because we can envisage ourselves of being capable of accomplishing much more than that, but also, surely, \u00a0because we would not want to see ourselves being limited by them.<\/p>\n

But given the state of the world today, for many the potential to distinguish ourselves beyond being just another creature on this planet appears to have been reduced to some self-aggrandizing exercise in unlimited exploitation, boundless consumption and mindless procreation, and that at great cost to ourselves and our future.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, we seem to have taken the first steps towards our own extinction by continuing to undermine the very environment that spawned and nurtured us and allowed us to thrive as a species.<\/p>\n

Alternatively \u2013 and yes, there is always an alternative, in particular to just being unimaginably shortsighted! \u2013 we \u00a0could use our collective brain-trust to decide what kinds of uniquely human qualities we ought to prioritize in order to truly benefit us all\u00a0 and start acting accordingly.<\/p>\n

I can think of a few: Imagine a world-wide society built on mutual trust and respect, featuring such things as a sustainable waste-free economy, free education, healthcare, equal opportunity regardless of race , age or gender, the pursuit of arts and sciences, and being free from famine, disease and crime. In other words, not much we are familiar with today, but something worth pursuing, don\u2019t you think?<\/p>\n

Easier said than done, without question;\u00a0 in fact some will say that such an utopian state of affairs will be impossible to achieve given what history has shown us to date\u00a0 about human nature.\u00a0 True, is difficult to see any such potential reflected in the daily course of our lives. Not only\u00a0 does \u00a0it seems near impossible to quantify them beyond being either mundane\u00a0 – and\u00a0 at any rate less than\u00a0 profound – or positively evil, and that would include much of human kind\u2019s murderous, bloodstained past and all of our\u00a0 self-destructive activities such as our relentless attacks on the earth\u2019s critical life-sustaining biosphere.<\/p>\n

The problem of course is that we seem to be lost and absolutely hapless when it comes to understanding our place in the world. In the mid\u00a0 1600\u2019s the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza wrote that people find themselves with needs and desires without understanding the reasons why they want and act as they do.\u00a0 Lacking this knowledge about themselves and their place in the world creates the illusion that they can do as they please, and which is a source of much grief when they act against their own interest because they\u00a0 don\u2019t seem know any better.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it is the implicit promise of our cosmic DNA, our origins,\u00a0 that will continue to urge us along this uncertain path towards a future we might one day be able to imagine what that would look like if we develop the ambition, courage and intellectual wherewithal to\u00a0 conceive the realization of it.\u00a0 And why shouldn’t\u00a0 we be able to: are we not the descendants of a\u00a0 magnificent\u00a0 cosmic event and all the spectacular creative energy that lies within and\u00a0 is necessarily\u00a0 represented within every particle of our being?<\/p>\n

I say “necessarily” because how could it not be? We aren’t some accidental and aberrant event over and above the phenomenon of the universe: we ARE the universe, nothing more and nothing less. Now, if we only knew what that meant, but that is what life is all about, isn’t it? And clearly, this is the larger context we should be taking our cues from when we plan our future \u2013 as little as we are able to grasp of it at the moment.<\/p>\n

For this we need to be able to turn ourselves inside out, by\u00a0 prioritizing\u00a0 the spiritual over the physical and embracing those values that are clearly larger than the largely material ones we appear to be pursuing today. Instead we ought to be pursuing empathy, compassion, trust and a respect for life in recognition of the incredible accomplishment that life represents as a cosmic effort to redefine itself for whatever purpose it has in mind – as much as we cannot even begin to think what that purpose may be although I suspect it might have something to do with establishing order over entropy and light over darkness\u00a0 in pursuit of total harmony.<\/p>\n

However \u2013 and as much as I hate to admit this \u2013 my greatest fear is that this kind of enlightened future is in fact not available to us as, when\u00a0 we may not have moved\u00a0 far enough up the evolutionary ladder to be able to visualize it – or event want it ! – and\u00a0 to start changing our ways collectively to make it a reality.<\/p>\n

As such, life is likely to continue to be the absolute tragedy it is, for our life-giving planet and for so many of our species today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Given what we think we know about the age of the universe,\u00a0 planet earth and the myriad of creatures that have and are continuing\u00a0 to inhabit it since\u00a0 life first appeared,\u00a0 we have arrived only recently\u00a0 as a species uniquely … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[478,479],"tags":[82,125,149],"class_list":["post-1874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people-politics-culture","category-philosophy-science-religion","tag-cosmos","tag-evolution","tag-future"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essays.rsree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essays.rsree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essays.rsree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essays.rsree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essays.rsree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/essays.rsree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essays.rsree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essays.rsree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essays.rsree.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}