Or at least that’s what I believe.
Everything we do or believe in should be informed by our endings — of all kind.
But that’s not how it works. Instead, unless we’re poleaxed by some dreadful disease, we put off any consideration of death until the very end and then pray for a quick, merciful and painless ending.
I know this is a morbid subject for many people and brings up all sorts of emotions but given the way the world’s life support system is being annihilated — one small but certain anthropocentric gouge at a time — it (surely) must be the right time to suggest to those in power and who don’t give a fig about anything more than growth, comfort and must-havery that they’re driving the extinction of the human race and everything else that has value.
Yes, you heard me: our leaders are aiding and abetting our certain and before-our-time demise.
But of course they won’t.
The problem is out there.
Somewhere in the future, and, for now, all they need worry about is being the hot-shot star who’s going to grab as much power and wealth as they can…and the rest of us, well, we can all go to hell.
Frankly, it’s delusional on so many levels.
What if our supposed leaders were to lament, to fall on bended knee, to keen out loud on what they and us have done to the world, humanity and our non-human cousins? To speak the truth for once; namely, we’re the most destructive species ever to inhabit this world. And we’ve abandoned not just our civic responsibilities but any humanity in favour of short-term growth and a material way of life. Better still, all of us were to understand that life is a gift but it’s meaningless without a liveable planet. And whilst we continue on this trajectory, all we’re doing is hastening our demise (see this article: Climate Change Linked to 5 Million Deaths a Year, New Study Shows).
You’d think, wouldn’t you, given what’s already happened this year both domestically and across the rest of the world that the portent of our demise is writ large and, if nothing else, we’d be shit scared of what this generation is continuing to do to the earth and it’s life support systems. But with the change of PM and the sycophants that now pass as our government, the direction of travel, at least for the next two years, is already clear. Gaia will have to play 2nd, 3rd or no fiddle to our desire to (ye gads) fracking, drilling every last drop of oil and gas out the North Sea and all the slightly bellicose language that’s spilling forth from our new Business Secretary. All the talk about net zero, 1.5C and advocating for a more responsible approach to the climate emergency looks like specious nonsense.
I understand it might be difficult to join the dots between our death and the climate emergency but, surely, we can’t expect our current lifestyle choices to be of no consequence.
In the end, and I’ll level with you, I’ve zero expectation that we’ll change our habits or change them quick enough to make any difference. And as the old saw goes: we’ll reap what we’ve sown and all those long lives that we’ve got accustomed to seeing will be a thing of the past.
For the record, I don’t think we have any real comprehension of how bad it really is and I have this sense that not only is it too late to make any real change but with the population as it is, the problem is simply too big to address.
I’ll go back to the start of this post. If death was the crucible of our life — and we really took that to heart — I wonder if we’d be so content with our life-ending, anthropocentric ways?
Photo by Evie S. on Unsplash