I've been having a running discussion with a friend of mine for the last few days. I'd like to think that it's rather meaningless, and very much given to our first-world culture, but to me it resounds as true, regardless of how privileged we are or where we live.
We've discussed a few times how frustrating other human beings can be, and just how much more simplistic life would be if we all just stopped caring, and took a come-what-may attitude. Life would indeed be simplistic. Nothing would be a problem, but as I imagine it, we would each be stones in the bottom of a stream then. Time and change would swirl around us and pass us by, and we would be... stones. Mute. Unchangeable. Uncaring. Boring.
Mind me, I'm one to talk. I'm bothered by things on a geological scale, but when it comes down to my personal life, I can't be bothered by a lot of things. I think many will agree that I'm a lot short of considerate. But when you view things from the big picture, we're little more than ants, which could just as easily be crushed and forgotten. It's important to remember that, because ultimately, that's what we'll be if we don't get a few things in order.
Humankind has accomplished great feats of both engineering and compassion in the past. It has also committed untold horrors and atrocities, from something as simple and overlooked as murder, to the broad and shameless extermination of entire ethnic groups. A lot of people claim that humanity will force itself to extinction, along with a good portion of the Earth's ecosystem. I'm not so bold. I don't think humanity will go extinct. Not for a long time. We're a wily race, gifted with a brain that's a confusing mix of half-vestigal instinct, and a fuzzy kernel of disused, misused, and abused logic.
I think we will survive, if only to spite the folly of the ones we choose to lead. Whereas we are inert and ambition-less like stones, our leaders tend to be hungry, greedy individuals who are forever reaching, forever politicking. It's an endless spiral of poison and power, and within its coil, anything is possible - including a completely possibly scouring of the Earth with nuclear weapons.
We will survive a nuclear winter. Our faith in the ability for others to lead will not.
And this brings me inexorably to the point I've been trying to make for weeks. We're moving away from each other. To some, this is a sad, sad thing. To most, it's nothing. Not even worth note. I'm just saying that one day, we won't even associate ourselves with each other, out of that bitter aftertaste that it was our neighbor's vote that bought us the bomb that dropped on our heads.
We'll just be people. And we'll be just like stones. We don't dare move together, because the momentum would be dangerous.
And in time, we'll forget about all the good things we did once, and we'll sometimes read about all the bad things.
And it will all be dull and gray until the day some guy or girl builds a monument, and on it will read a very simple line:
Today I was here, but tomorrow I won't be. I desire to see something better, so I've left this here as a reminder to myself and to others that may come. We were all once here today, but not tomorrow.
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