I’m regularly surprised about our concerns regarding the state of the environment, the atmosphere and the extinction of species. It’s as if the world is ours and ours to look after. We expect it to be the way it is and to stay the way it is. If anything changes, we’re unhappy and looking for someone to blame.
The truth is, we didn’t make the world. It’s not “ours”. Even if we wanted to, we have absolutely no capacity to make anything like the world. Whatever force made the world, that force is almost infinitely more powerful than we are. In many ways, the world as it is was given to us as a gift and we’d do better seeing it as a gift and being grateful for it. It’s a gift that comes with no guarantees. After receiving the gift, we can’t demand that the world will always be the way that it is, as that’s not within our control.
Of course, if we’re grateful for such a gift that the world is, we’d be careful to look after it and not be disrespectful to it. This is where our disappointment can lie. Some people are completely disrespectful to our world and that’s regretful, but also hard to stop. We’d go crazy if our happiness depended on having no humans in the world were disrespectful to the world.
Even taking into account the portion of humans who are disrespectful to the world, we cannot control how it changes. Looking back through the geological records that we can understand, the world has been in a state of innumerable changes since its formation. Right now, we’re in a phase of the world that’s the most inhabitable for humans with a temperate climate, liquid water all year round and a life sustaining atmosphere. These are more reasons why we should be profoundly grateful for this gift, but we can’t demand (or assume) that should always be this way.
With the history of almost unending change, we can only assume that the world will go through more changes, changes not prescribed by us but by another force. One example is that geologists know that the magma pile underneath Yellowstone national park will erupt one day (within the next 200,000 years) and wipe out half of the United States and create an ash cloud covering the whole world. Such things completely beyond our control.
So, what should we do? Be grateful for everything we have now. A beautiful climate, lovely animals and plants, abundant energy for our comfortable lives, an ever improving medical system to keep us as healthy as possible. There is much to be grateful for now. Right now! Be grateful to the force behind this gift. Concentrate on that force. It’s that force that’s most important. That force is more fundamental than the world, And, because we are here, we are also derived from that force. It’s worthwhile to just sit still and contemplate all of this.
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