Sadness and Despair seized me as I read a recent forwarded e-mail message from an obnoxious hockey coach and commentator giving Canada a bad name by recommending severe testicle torture to glean information from captive "terrorists.
Discarding the fact that torture does not deliver accurate information, it is highly demeaning to the humanness of the perpetrator. Terrorists do exists worldwide, but in a world awash with weapons of destruction and organizations intent only on their own profit, they are not limited to a few suicide bombers or the current scourge, IS. With only months left to save us from catastrophe our task is so massive that we have no time for testicles. Root problems scream for immediate attention.
We humans have much to boast about, but we also have many faults, some of which are galloping us to our extinction, such as unsustainable numbers, wars, climate manipulations, and Greed.
We all enter this brief existence with quite similar genes, 90% bacterial and 10% human. We are vain enough to believe the human ones are in charge and perhaps they are when it comes to the harm we do to each other. The actions of all, however, are controlled by Greed. And Geography has dealt hands that vary so alarmingly that they cry for communal solutions. Many have been tried under various forms of Socialism and Communism but, like Capitalism, they all succumb to Greed.
With each generation trillions of cells are miraculously built to form each new life, our genes are formed afresh, all needing education from ancestors to survive in a cruel environment. This education is dominated by mindsets dominated by Geography, and steps, insufficient as they might be, have been taken by the fortunate to assist the unfortunate. That we evolved into life forms that, for survival, demanded the eating of other life forms was a bad start, but some members of our amazing species are beginning to correct this along with all the other ailments that afflict us. But does the immensity of the task and the indifference of the majority, or should I say the opposition of the favoured few, doom it to failure because of too little too late?
We are the only species, as far as we know, that has compiled its history. It includes the whole gamut of good and bad. Recorded are the 4 billion deaths in major wars, the ruthless destruction of villages, tribes, nations, and civilizations, the incredible misery piled on humans and animals. Also recorded are inventions made, structures and civilizations built, beliefs for the betterment of humanity entrenched, adventures across, over, and under the oceans, and into space as well as significant probing into the energy and matter of which we are constituted. We are beginning to dimly understand what, if not why, we are.
We understand mindsets and we know how they have changed over the centuries and the amazing number that have changed just in our lifetime. We know that we are to blame for the current 6th Great Extinction our world has endured. Nature, with some help from microbial life forms, was responsible for the first five, but underway is Number 6 that is ours alone, affecting our climate so much that our species is at grave risk. We can argue that the world will be better off without us, but why destroy a species that has come so far and holds so much promise?
Worldwide demonstrations reveal that a major, and necessary, mindset is underway but how many realize how massive it will have to be with willing, hopefully temporary, sacrifices from all? Are we up to the challenge of saving ourselves? You and I cannot escape our own responsibilities.
Tearing apart a few testicles can bring us only shame. Improving mindsets and actions may provide salvation.
Ye Olde Scribe