Life on a Rock

Who are we and what do we want? People, i mean.

For a short time there i thought we were creations of a deity and that our principal desire should be salvation--the fundamentals that my parents taught me. But it slowly dawned on me that we are just another one of the living creatures that evolved on this planet. I then realized that what i truely wanted was a reasonable amount of happiness during my time on this rock and to understand it and as many of its other inhabitants as i could; by inhabitants i mean other animals, fish, plants, trees, viruses, everything that i share Earth with.

This desire to know about all the creatures on this rock and the rock itself, i realize now stem from my connection to these things. A connection that modern life keeps hacking away at.

15,000 years ago i would have to risk life and limb to obtain material for making footwear; there was a closer connection then, between hunter and hunted. Today, unless i had to bring down the UPS truck that delivers my animal skins to produce footwear, the predetor-prey relationship is gone, the connection is less defined. My need to explore mother Earth, to become one with, is diminished.

Knowledge of life is understanding of it and to understand is to feel, which brings honor to the life being acknowledged. That is why Facebook is so popular: most people like being acknowledged.

"The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance"
--Socrates