Random thoughts
September 17, 2010 at 8:34am

We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.
R. D. Laing

List:

Population Birth rate Death rate

Environment Air Water land

Education Science History Humanities Arts

Technology Mechanics Electronics Physics Chemical

Business Small business Corporations Global corporations

News and information Hard news Opinion Propaganda

Politics Forms of government

Religion many or none

Food agriculture

Health new drugs modern techniques

We are advancing in each of these areas at different rates and the result is imbalance in how we affect the rock we live on. The planet can tolerate much more diversity than the delicate bioentities on the surface. The problem is that we are capable of changing the thin layers that we reside in enough to bring about an end for most or all life.

How can we avoid that scenario? Can we control any thing on the list? Will that control influence any of the other things on the list? We have been here for only a blink in time compared to other life forms, yet we have changed the thin layers more than any other.

The layers of air, water and earth make up a small percentage of the planet. Each has a role in providing requirements for life as we know it. The way of life we have become accustomed to affects all three in many ways, most not so good.

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home, so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: The neighbourhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962)

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.
~John Muir

Death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident - It is as common as life.
~Henry David Thoreau, 11 March 1842, letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? ~Kahlil Gibran, from "The Prophet"

Time, the cradle of hope.... Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends.
~Charles Caleb Colton

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much tie you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.
~Denis Waitely

Sometimes it's important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it's essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which colour to slide down on the rainbow. ~Douglas Pagels, These Are the Gifts I'd Like to Give to You

From Northern Exposure,John Corbett ... Chris Stevens, Rob Morrow ... Dr. Joel Fleischman

Chris Stevens: "Goethe's final words: "More light." Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry: "More light." Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlelight. Neon. Incandescent. Lights that banish the darkness from our caves, to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier's field. Little tiny flash-light for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and foot-candles. Light is metaphor. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home- Lead Thou me on! Arise, shine, for thy light has come. Light is knowledge. Light is life. Light is light."

Dr. Joel Fleischman: "Life here is so elemental. So real. Without the interference of civilization you can really experience things like... silence. Silence and darkness in its purity. Right now, right outside my window all I can see is a black void. Endless darkness. It's totally exhilarating, and I feel very lucky to be here. Very, very lucky."

Chris Stevens: "We all carry around so much pain in our hearts. Love and pain and beauty. They all seem to go together like one little tidy confusing package. It's a messy business, life. It's hard to figure - full of surprises. Some good. Some bad."