(repost)
…Media outlets across the globe bombard us with clichés and overused tropes. We continue to occupy ourselves with ethical and philosophical predicates; we speak of natural resources, scientific visions, climatic disruptions, and natural beauty. We talk of “green energy,” of “Tesla-wisdoms,” and of “natural wonders.” We always make “Nature” the subject of our moralizing, yet we almost never speak seriously about the separation – the rupture, the unnatural chasm between us and the existential natural world.
We watch as this gap “deepens” every single day, yet we seem to prefer “philosophizing” about military budgets, advanced tanks, and “recyclable” missiles. We focus on wars, fuels, and politics; on rusted submarines, ignorances, and arrogances. We talk of migrating to Mars and the terraforming of some alien planet.
Is it truly possible? After hundreds of millions of years of balanced existence, only two or three technological centuries of steam – only one century of the “oil-men” and their rusted relics – and the existential balance is thrown off? Our entire planet is driven to distraction.
Now, it seems everything is headed toward an end, toward a point of no return. For millions of years, species lived in perfect harmony with nature; now “Mother Nature” (that ancient matriarch of the dinosaurs) is in agony. In her final throes, she will no longer be able to support life or even herself – all because of a single century of the “oil-men’s” smoke.
And now, she lingers in pain – a Nature scorched by cosmic radiation, by carcinogenic zones and ozone holes, by the collapsing sky and spasmodic tremors. She suffers from all manner of unnatural ailments, from defects and pains caused by her own “children” – by “Techno-man” with his (Existential) Plan A already “spent,” now frantically searching for a Plan B.
(sguraziu, may 2018)
***
…at this year’s (2020) Oscar ceremony, American actor Joaquin Phoenix gave an intensely emotional speech. He touched on many of these same issues, speaking of humanity’s fixated mindset regarding dominance over the planet’s species, over other cultures and peoples – about our egocentrism and greed.
He suggested we should have a “second chance”, and that humanity should have already learned its “lesson”.
According to Phoenix, if we approach the world with pure love, we can achieve brilliance, genius, and efficient solutions for all sentient species on the planet. He even touched upon the simplest example: how humanity gives itself the legitimacy to “cultivate animals industrially” (as if they were mere plants, laboratory bio-experiments, or hybrid horticulture). Then, as soon as they see the light of life, we steal their “children” from them.
The poor animals cry out, and we pretend to be deaf and blind. We do not hear their spiritual screams; we do not feel the searing of their hearts; we do not see their tears. The milk that was intended for their young, we “steal” that too, just to sweeten our coffee.
(thus, a short interpretation of Mr. Phoenix’s words – sguraziu, february 2020)
