we live on planet Earth and we’re human beings
Being alive as a human being on planet Earth is a great wonder, people, a miracle, a blessing, an unusual occurrence, the result of 14 billion years of the universe building up to make us from basically nothing. I mean before the big bang what was there? Nothing. And then there was hydrogen and helium and then the stars and then all the elements and then planets and then swirling galaxies and then planets with life and then planet Earth with life 3.5 billion years ago. It sparked up right here on planet Earth and after many trials and travails evolved into us. That’s 14 billion years, people, to become human beings living on planet Earth.
Besides all our divisions and divisiveness we need to remember that we are human beings living on a planet. This is our commonality, this is our heritage and this is our beautiful gift and maybe we should talk about this.
One of our things is to communicate and be heard. It’s one of our fundamental traits going back to the first microbes sending messages in a bottle to other microbes (the messenger molecules). We love to express ourselves and get feedback. Rap music is all over the world, it’s in every language even Saudi Arabian, if that’s a language. The kids are doing it in Saudi Arabia, if they can get away with it. They’re doing it in Africa and they’re doing it in Mexico, they’re doing it in South America, they’re doing it everywhere. It’s the kids expressing themselves. And putting it on YouTube so they can gain followers and have an audience.
This is so human. We’re not fulfilled if we’re out of the communications loop. If we are expressing ourselves and being understood, we feel a certain contentment - must be the dopamine being released from our neurons in response to signals from our language center. Being in the communications loop feels good, we’re connected, everything is connected. Me and that pigeon over there can see each other, recognize each other and send signals to each other. The pigeon basically wants to know: do I have food? He walks over to within 4 feet and gives me a checkout. No sign of food. He keeps on walking. That was inter-species communication.
In a city, like where I live, people are concentrated into a matrix-like crystal structure. It’s malleable but it’s rigid at the same time. Everyone is affecting everyone else. We’re bouncing off of each other and finding our order. We’re doing our commerce, our selling and buying. We’re riding our scooters and pretending we live here when really we’re from Reynosa.
These are my observations sitting in the park downtown where I’m writing this, but I started thinking about it a couple of days ago when I was in CVS looking for ear drops. CVS is a pharmacy but to get to the pharmacy you have to go past row after row of merchandise, literally falling of the shelves, 6 feet high. It’s some kind of super aggressive retailing. Then I thought about how we are exposed to this all day long every day. Logos and advertising permeate our world like, well like a matrix structure. It’s become so much a part of who we are and what our world is.
In fact, the merchandising and the commerce have become our world. This is what we think about and what we work for. We spend most of our time and energy making money to pay for our stuff. We are consumers, not human beings living on a planet.
This Earth is an oasis in a vast, forbidding universe. There may be life out there but it’s nowhere nearby. This is the original Garden of Eden and we are the original Adam and Eve; I mean our species is.
The word Adam comes from the biblical word Adamah, which translates as ground or earth, that which we came from and that which we were consigned to till with the sweat of our brow for the crime of eating the forbidden fruit. The word Eve in Hebrew is from a root that means ‘living one’ or ‘source of life’. The word Earth, although it’s origin is unsure, may go all the way back to Sumerian, the first recorded language, and the word Ur meaning ‘the land’ or ‘the place’. It has cognates, or similar sounding words, in many languages, as people of different cultures tried to express something about being here.
We are here. Human beings living on planet Earth. It’s fantastic. Four seasons, rivers and mountains, oceans, beaches, a sky full of air. It’s all too obvious and yet somehow we don’t appreciate it until it’s almost gone, which is a tragedy but maybe we can talk about it. Maybe we can notice it. Maybe we can think about it.
I’m a human being and I’m living on planet Earth. Wow.
Our world is no different than Socrates’ time. When we truly know ourselves, everything falls into its place. Oh lots of mistakes & transgressions....
the breathe keeps flowing
Glorious 🙏Rohn
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