What is the answer to the age-old question, why are we here? Is there any real reason why we should exist?
Most times we’re so wrapped up in our own life, we seldom wonder what it’s all about. Not only humans, but animals, plants and every living thing only exists to reproduce and make more of their kind to carry on as if there was a real need for survival.
From what the scientists say, we’ve been here for many millions of years. This means every species that has survived until today has had sex, in what ever manner, to produce more of its kind over and over without a gap.
It’s said that every living thing has a reason for being on Earth. In truth I believe that most living things find a niche that enables them to survive and get along with their surroundings. Many become food for others, which seems like not much of a prospect for a happy life.
Man, because of his larger brain, sees himself as superior to all plants and creatures on the planet. Unfortunately, he feels he must control how the world is managed. We also possess a trait which most animals are incapable of, that of greed.
In the process of struggling for ever more control and wealth, greed — in all its forms — is causing us to burn up our planet at a startling rate. If only we could see the folly of our ways, we could live here indefinitely without coming to a rather slow and painful sticky end, leaving only the other creatures of the Earth that we haven’t eradicated to run the show.
It seems that the only answer is to downgrade our expectations of what we really need. This doesn’t mean going back to the stone age, but rather living within the means of the planet.
If we could stop and see how insignificant we are in the universe, we would be embarrassed at how greedy and short-sighted we’ve been. Every astronaut who has looked back at Earth from the black of deep space has been changed when they saw how small and insignificant we really are in the endless reaches of our universe.
Our self importance needs to be tempered with the understanding of what is required of us to manage the planet in a responsible way, or it will do it for us.
Jon PageQualicum Beach
