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Thursday, December 20, 2007

The naturally unnatural future -- Returning to Eden?

"Let's start thinking about what sort of Earth we want our descendants to inherit."

What a big and difficult question. For some (or most?) it seems a simply question. But when we look around and see what our builders of the future are building, we see oodles of "artificial" mammoth structures growing in China with a gravity defying skyscraper as the most recent example, continuing the trend of "making room" with clever and interesting boxes to shelter the forever increasing numbers of humans ever more unchecked by prior evolutionary checks, so it seems that humans are restructuring the entire planet into a willy-nilly patchwork of habitats that attempt to provide creature comforts to humans, and in the process are trading the unknown for the known. Or our notion for the "known." The old notion of the "natural" is rapidly becoming the new notion of the sacred. And as our ancestors built cathedrals to house the "spirit of the sacred," the future seems wanting to save the untouched and unspoiled remaining nature and keeping it untainted forever by human touch. Have we finally found Eden? (and it was here all the time?) And this time we willingly stand outside and look in, in awe. Finally knowing that we, the once ejected, are again given the chance to be the keepers?

3 comments:

jzr said...

We humans are certainly making a mess of things! Being in the big city of New York at the moment I feel like a fish out of water. The air is thick with exhaust, cigar smoke, the sounds of horns honking. I think we will disappear ourselves from all this poison. Perhaps the planet will then have a chance to survive. A Bhuddist might say this is all "natural" as nothing is permanent and all things come to an end at some time. A difficult scenario none-the-less when I consider the future of my grandchildren.

Bro. Bartleby said...

I do hope you find some enjoyment in NYC. I must admit, whenever I find myself walking the streets of Manhattan, I'm almost giddy. If you are still there you may want to visit All Souls Church (All Souls is on the southeast corner of 80th Street and Lexington Avenue.)
http://www.allsoulsnyc.org/whoweare/whowearehome.htm
I should note that Herman Melville was a member of All Souls (some say a "nominal" member).

jzr said...

I did indeed have an enjoyable time. The city is in her finest garb at Christmas time and watching all of the children at Rockefeller Plaza was wonderful. Among the highlights of the trip was a wonderful performance of the New York Philharmonic with various sopranos, tenors and such doing Handel's Messiah.

I am home now, so didn't get to All Souls Church but will next time I'm there.