Discovery

Since the beginning of time there have been new discoveries by man. A few thousand years ago it may have been the discovery of an undiscovered edible berry. Or maybe the discovery of another tribe of people who you more than likely didn’t get along with because they believed in Lord Katatata and your tribe believed in the Magic Fairy. You probably fought, and you didn’t want to learn their language. Back in those days you may have discovered a few new sources of water or a few new hunting grounds in your lifetime.

Things are quite different now. It is remarkable how many discoveries there are in today’s world of 6 billion people. We get a new vacuum cleaner about every 5 minutes. We discover new drugs all the damn time, with new ailments to support them. We are still discovering new species of life here on the planet, but not as fast as we extinct them.

But there are a few discoveries over the last few hundred years which have really made a splash. In 1206, Al-Jazari designed a reciprocating piston engine. That was a big one. Down the road aways we got the industrial revolution. We found ourselves with planes, trains, and automobiles, with the extra special global warming bonus package. Have fun with electricity and burning fossil fuels, enjoy the world travel, and we’ll serve that up with your imminent demise on the side. The telephone: Big! Computers and the internet. Holy cow. Here we all are. In touch. Other than that we’ve just been fucking like crazy, and enjoying the landscaping of our overpopulation. We still starve the poor, kill people we disagree with, and act with a total disregard for reality, or with any degree of humility in relation to our place in the world.

We still act like God created the world for us. Can it be that we still haven’t discovered that it’s not true? We evolved here. We got really smart. We’ve discovered that we are made of the same stuff as the trees and the stars, and each other. We know we are one human species. We’ve gone pretty far out in space and we can’t seem to find another planet we can live on. Yet we still treat this one like a disposable piece of garbage, even though this garbage heap we live on, this beautiful mothership earth, will be the one who throws us out. It’s time for us to wake up to the discoveries which are relevant today.

Remember the canary. We used to bring a canary down into the mine with us, and if it died, we knew to get the hell out of there. What should we think in this present world where over 50 species go extinct every day to make room for more Wal-Marts and oil exploration? That’s like 50 canarys lying dead around us every day. Yet we just keep digging. We are all made up of the same matter, even as oil and Wal-Mart. We are all particles in this infinite universe. We are all connected.

We are smaller than we act, but we are bigger than we think. There is still room for spirituality, love, beauty, light, hope, truth, and justice, in a new paradigm of thought which can allow us to cease our ignorance and foolishness as a species. We can’t keep killing each other. It’s bad form. We can’t just call someone a terrorist and then think it’s OK to kill them or lock them up. We can’t just keep using this old technology which is filling the atmosphere with pollution which is really going to heat things up.

Let’s put the fire out under our ass before it kills us before we can. We know what corporations are doing in concert with governments around the world. They (and we) are paralyzing populations with dumb boxes, branding, sales, and greed; turning them (and ourselves) into perfect consumers, but terrible people. This is not OK. We should really change our ways. We’d be a lot happier if we did. If we stopped trying to be what they want us to be, “normal,” good Christian citizens, and decided to be ourselves, think how fun it would be, and what a better, freer, world we could create. We have to find that little beautiful spirit we all know we had when we were kids. That sparkly eyed dreamer, that little kid is you. We should celebrate ourselves and be free to be ourselves, and live to live great dreams, to be the caretakers of this planet which is our home. We can still dream. We can still act. There is still time. But we have to turn off the TV. We have to join forces with all those who want to see a better world, and we need to go out and convince the people who are still sleeping that they want it just as bad.