“Mention the name “Jesus” and a lot of associations or expectations of the “do this/don’t do that” variety begin to stir. But if you look to this saying for another commandment, you do so in vain. There are none. You don’t find a “should” or a “don’t,” nor a “maybe” nor a contentious “but.” It is a description of what happens, how things tend to go when you slow down and pay attention, nothing more. Prophylactic life lessons are a dime a dozen. But being able to see things as they happen right in front of you: that might be the Kingdom of God Jesus seems to have spoken of so often.”
— Stephen Jenkinson, Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble (pp. 307-308), North Atlantic Books, Kindle Edition
Why are we here?
What’s our purpose?
How do we find meaning in our lives?
All worthy questions but their purview is entirely anthropocentric, meaning they pay scant attention to our non-human cousins.
Truth is, or at least my version of the truth (you may have a very different take on things), no one knows why they’re here. Sure, as you age, it’s easier to ascribe meaning and a sense of knowing to how things have gone but, in the early going, especially when you’re not sure of your identity, it would be hard, almost impossible, to adumbrate the reason(s) for being brought into the world. Knowing that you’d think we wouldn’t have taken on an almost godlike quality in our assumptions — i.e. an obsession with the telluric qualities of Gaia to provide and serve our material needs and wants.
I’d go further and say that our genetic make-up predisposes us to survival. Or put it another way, we have an inbuilt desire to procreate because to do otherwise would risk our early demise. But, if it’s not already obvious, one of the main reasons why we’ve arrived at the age of the Anthropocene is because of the sheer number of people.
Leaving to one side the religious issues — and don’t forget how long we’ve been in existence before any form of monotheism took hold — what if we’d stayed connected on a psychic or community level where we all took a vow only to bring new beings into the world if we could support them (i.e. keep them alive) from our small, self-sustaining patch of the earth.
What then?
Instead, and by virtue of a surplus of food, energy and housing (think how little time we spend in parts of our house/flat), we managed, over a short period of time (i.e. the great acceleration), to add billions and billions of people to this planet. Don’t ask me why we didn’t globally join the dots between population and our demise but something has gone drastically wrong if we (still) think we can continue to support 8 billion people (and still growing) without causing catastrophic loss to all sentient life.
Again, consider the rubric. However it happened or why it happened — i.e. we came into being — is hard to fathom but we’ve made a piss poor job of keeping things in balance for this generation and those to follow. And what we’ve enjoyed isn’t guaranteed to last.
Explain that to the kids.
Of course, the foregoing, is at best, my first stab at a complex and complicated issue but I’m still not sure why we’ve come to assume the right to be here — in whatever setting. Or put it another way, if the gods were to speak about our effect on the world, how would we bear up under the scrutiny?
Take care…for now.
Blessings,
Julian
Thanks, Ju. Lots to reflect on here and I’m continually grateful for your writing and how they challenge my thinking. 🙏