The Audacity of Man

The Audacity of Man

By Patrick San Francesco

Among all the species, we consider ourselves the most superior. Religion is one of the biggest sponsors to this belief. The feeling that we have dominion over all of creation lends to this concept. The irony of it is, there is definitely nothing that is superior about us, except our attitude. Our obsession with the need to possess blinds us to the damage we wreak on nature and our fellow humans.

When we see a beautiful flower, instead of admiring it and leaving it undisturbed, we cut it thereby killing it. This compulsive need to possess all that we fancy, is born of incredible arrogance. The wildlife on this planet has been decimated to the point of extinction by men who needed to bolster their flagging egos by exercising their ‘power’ through hunting and the killing of animals.

We flatten the mountains to obtain ore to make metals. Leveling of the mountains causes change in wind, rain and river patterns. We use the metals to build machines and engines that need fossil fuels to run. Burning of these fossil fuels creates air pollution and also destroys the ozone layer that shields us from the ultra violet radiation of the sun. The over exposure to the UV radiation raises ambient temperatures and worse still, causes cancer. Complain we will, yet we don’t drive our cars any less.

We exploit the natural resources that planet earth so readily gives us and we give nothing back in return. Yet we feel victimized when we face the consequences of the imbalance we have caused. Global warming results in floods, but man has caused global warming. Deforestation causes reduced rainfall which results in drought, yet man continues to fell the forests. These are just two of the numerous examples of man’s hand causing nature to turn against himself.

Despite the fact that man is often the cause of so many of these calamities, he terms them ‘natural disasters’, thus placing the blame on Mother Nature. Our insatiable need for energy causes us to exploit the caches of fossil fuels found in the Earth’s crust and burn them indiscriminately polluting the atmosphere, all this while paying ‘lip service’ to protecting the environment. The list of man’s decimation of the earths resources is endless. We are like a virus inhabiting the planet and when Mother Earth has had enough and takes an ‘antibiotic’ in the form of a fire or flood, it is termed a ‘natural disaster’. We are rapidly rendering the earth incapable of supporting life. Planet Earth is our ONLY home and we are rapidly making that home uninhabitable.

The answer is plain enough, start giving back. Strike a balance. some may argue that there is an increased awareness and concrete efforts are being made to redress the balance. This awareness is emphasized periodically on occasions such as ‘Earth Day’, ‘Environment Day’, etc. A common activity on these selected days is tree planting. Children are encouraged to plant saplings, but the question rarely asked and almost never answered is, “Who nurtures and maintains the sapling after it is planted till it establishes its root system?” I (the author of this article) have invented an humble, inexpensive contraption made largely of recycled products that collects nighttime dew and feeds it to the sapling. (https://patricksanfrancesco.squarespace.com/dew-catcher)

When the first polymers were synthesized at the beginning of the last century, plastic was heralded as the ‘Miracle’ material of the modern world, and ‘Miracle’ material it was until it was over produced with no thought to its longevity and subsequent disposal. Now the word “plastic” has become a dirty word. Recycling has become the ‘mop’ to clean up the mess caused by plastic. Sadly, the efforts to recycle are akin to fighting a forest fire with a teacup of water.

The need of the hour is a more realistic and practical approach to our efforts to establish checks and balances.

Man’s duplicity is not confined just to his environment but also to his way of life. He wages war in his quest for peace. Every country has a Ministry of Defense but never a Ministry of Offense. Who then starts the war? To enforce peace at the end of a gun barrel, is self defeating. The size of the gun is directly proportional to the fear of the person wielding the gun. Before he seeks peace he should be at peace with himself. If man is at peace with himself, he will find the world at peace.

He spends money buying gadgets to free himself of mundane chores, thus saving his energy and then spends money to work off the energy in a gym. Those ‘mundane’ chores are the ticket to his wellbeing.

He invents machines to do his work, then laments when he is unemployed. This shift towards mechanization is governed by the ‘bottom line’ on the balance sheet. That figure on the balance sheet has made man expendable. Thus man is rendering himself obsolete.

Man asserts that his intelligence separates him from the rest of creation, thus putting a great emphasis on education. Yet paradoxically the two most important jobs in the world, politics (leading a nation) and parenting (raising the next generation) do not require any educational qualifications. Yet he wonders why his world is so disorganized and disrupted.

As an individual, man works hard to make his old age comfortable and easy, only to find that in the twilight of his life he is plagued with illness resulting from his overwork. Success is not measured by the marks scored or the income earned, rather success is measured by the positive impact on society.

Man assiduously pursues happiness, yet the very same pursuit causes him so much stress and anxiety that the happiness that he sought is lost along the way. This is because he views gratification as happiness. True happiness is not a feeling or emotion, true happiness is an attitude.

He buys his children toy guns, then decries the violence in the world. Man deems God to be loving and forgiving, yet fears His wrath and punishment. This concept of ‘carrot and stick’ is the basis of man’s motivation to do good. In the final equation, man is not merely audacious, man is man’s biggest enemy!