Living on Borrowed Time

... don't you think?

** Trigger warning! ** This musing will not likely be to everyone's taste. It’s not liable to be my most popular post ever!

So, when I drafted this (two weeks or so ago; I sometimes sit on things a while before I post them), I started out with noting that I'm almost 71 now, & that I've been very fortunate to have had a very full, rich (even privileged) life. Then went on to mention that in the old days, people didn't live nearly as long as this. Then, did a search to see what life expectancy was for humans in our cave days & later on, say, in the Middle Ages - but the Internet seems to be saying now that maybe we humans have always lived longer lives than was formerly believed - so I decided to just abandon that line of thought. Oh well. A dead end rabbit hole!

Okay. So I’m almost 71 now, & spent about three decades of my life as a busy environmental activist (& writer), having started hearing a lot in the 1980s (well, even before that, actually) about the seriousness of the environmental crisis (I guess I first started hearing about it in the early 1970s, as a young university student).

All these many years later, it seems as though a lot of people have still not really been paying much attention to the hard truth that our species has been - well, if it's not too impolite to point it out - laying waste to Planet Earth for a lot of years. Really a lot of them.

You know.

• Pollution.

• Waste of all kinds (it takes many forms).

• Wiping out species by the truckload.

• Pumping a lot of crap into the air. Really a lot.

• A lot of crap into the planet's waters. All of them. Every single body of water on the planet.

• Hoovering up resources - wrenching them out of the ground like there's no tomorrow (funny expression, isn't it?)

We've been a little heedless, hmmmm?

Well … more than a little, really.

So.

Things now are kind of a mess, sadly.

Our air & water are in far worse condition than most of us know, I expect.

Or, frankly, want to know! Or to think about.

I get that. (I don't really want to know this stuff either. 🙁)

I don't want to belabour this.

You either get it about the 6 (or 35) ways to Sunday that our species has been trashing the planet - or my few words here are not going to sway you at this point.

Speaking of points...

What is my point here?

Just this:

I think it's decently possible (more than just possible in the eyes of some of us) that our species is heading for extinction.

Considering all the messes we've made (remember I spent about 3 decades studying up on a laundry list of different issues, so I do know a fair bit about different aspects of the crisis)...

I'm frankly kind of surprised we're still here!!

There was a World Scientists' Warning to Humanity way back in 1992 that you can take a look at, if you feel so inclined. Quite interesting who some of the signatories were. Stephen Hawking is among them. Stephen Jay Gould. Digby McLaren. John Polyani. Roger Penrose. Carl Sagan. Sherwood 'Sherry' Rowland. E.O. Wilson. Of course, 1700 or so others from around the world, many of them Nobel laureates.

I think it’s fair to ask … have we maybe about exceeded our shelf life??

I dunno.

It just kind of seems to me that, really, we're all living on borrowed time.

And that it may be a good idea to be somewhat mindful of that.

& be sure to use our time wisely.

That's just what I'm musing today...

After all, we don't get to do a makeover!

What REALLY matters?

We can only figure out as individuals what's really important to us. What our priorities really need to be.

Now.

And live accordingly.

Janet

p.s. this is all just my thoughts, Reader. It may resonate for you - or it may not. Take it or leave it! I know the idea of our species going extinct seems to be a bit too much for most people to rassle with. It’s maybe like having a terminal cancer & coming to deeply accept one's impending death, as opposed to denying & fighting it right up to the last minute. Not everyone, it seems, can take it on. It’s uncomfortable. Inconvenient! I can also say, though, that one can take it on & learn to be okay with it. To make what I call a sort of rocky peace with it. And of course, I could be wrong!

p.p.s. But when you think about it, there’s really no downside to looking at things this way. Anything that makes us more mindful of living our lives as meaningfully as we can is a good thing, don’t you think?

p.p.p.s. I used to write about human extinction quite a bit in previous years. I don't usually talk about it these daze. If for some reason you'd like to see some of my old postings about it (seems unlikely anyone will, but by all means have a gander at them if you like!), feel free to go to the 'Collections' posting on my old site, & scroll down to the N section (N for near-term extinction). There's some pretty helpful stuff there! Quotations & such. Especially about grief - since our unacknowledged grief about the state of the world is a pretty big elephant in the room. As far as that goes, my posting here on S-stack about grief a while back is the 2nd-most-viewed post here (the top-viewed one by leaps & bounds, for the record, is Why I'm an "Anti-Vaxxer”). Grief is something I think we are all rassling with - one way & another. Myself included, I assure you!

p.s. #4: Courage is important! There are some good quotations about courage here.

Musical interlude:

(the above quote is from Pema Chödrön)