In the last days of Ur, the kings and queens of the collapsing city state began sink into a bloody minded nostalgia. They sought backwards into antiquarian histories for methods of dealing with the changing world around them and stagnated when those methods would not allow progress. Their traditions failed them because they were traditional. Contrarian voices were hushed by the will of the powerful praying for salvation in the past.
As we sit in our Golden Age, our children looking to advances we cannot even fathom, we must take a moment and contemplate the failings of leadership in ancient Ur. They knew nothing of microbiology or quantum physics or architecture. The great Ziggurat of Ur had to be rebuilt because it ground itself to dust in a matter of centuries. A poor foundation built largely on sand.
Still, they maintained their histories.
Today we face untold potential for creation. We are not gods but we will stand amongst them if our path continues unmolested. We kill fewer of our own now than at any point in history. Fewer of us die and more survive birth than ever before. History will not repeat unless our unwillingness to seek into the disquieting possibilities of far flung eons ahead sends us scuttling back beneath the rock of tradition and the shelter of culture indoctrinated ignorance.
Aware as we may be, driving down the street, of the children crouched in doorways in the richest of our cities we do not seek to heal the collective of mankind. We give pittances in charity and ask not the causes. When the causes are forced into our faces by our own misery it isn't until the last moment when violence is the only option that we thrust ourselves out and declare in assertive voices that we won't stand for it anymore.
In this century it is entirely possible that for the first time we may begin to live to see the consequences of our actions, not only for our children, but for our progeny many generations removed. Imagine that! To breathe the air of an undiscovered country on a star we'll spot an eon from now. Your chest could pump with it, intoxicating you with scents no beast of Terra ever conceived.
I warn you now. You just may.
What then will the intervening period have contained? How many regrets can a mind contain before it bursts? Do you build your lungs of iron after you've hacked down the last tree and poured poison into the last river to save the bottom line of a corporation? Will it be humanity that sees those stars with all it's myriad impulses, fears, wonderments and incongruities?
It could be. I don't claim to know if our paths are the right ones. Mistakes made are locked in a place we cannot change them. The past is a scrawl of tracks in the dirt. It is lipstick on the mirror. What is done should be remembered and amended but if we seek backwards for our redemption we will find ourselves burnt in the fires that consumed our progenitors.
Ten thousand years from this date another fool may write this psalm again. She may rail and raggedly shriek that 'This doesn't have to happen this way! We know they did it this way before. Let us go another direction!'
Mayhap her voice to the contrary will be heard then.
As we sit in our Golden Age, our children looking to advances we cannot even fathom, we must take a moment and contemplate the failings of leadership in ancient Ur. They knew nothing of microbiology or quantum physics or architecture. The great Ziggurat of Ur had to be rebuilt because it ground itself to dust in a matter of centuries. A poor foundation built largely on sand.
Still, they maintained their histories.
Today we face untold potential for creation. We are not gods but we will stand amongst them if our path continues unmolested. We kill fewer of our own now than at any point in history. Fewer of us die and more survive birth than ever before. History will not repeat unless our unwillingness to seek into the disquieting possibilities of far flung eons ahead sends us scuttling back beneath the rock of tradition and the shelter of culture indoctrinated ignorance.
Aware as we may be, driving down the street, of the children crouched in doorways in the richest of our cities we do not seek to heal the collective of mankind. We give pittances in charity and ask not the causes. When the causes are forced into our faces by our own misery it isn't until the last moment when violence is the only option that we thrust ourselves out and declare in assertive voices that we won't stand for it anymore.
In this century it is entirely possible that for the first time we may begin to live to see the consequences of our actions, not only for our children, but for our progeny many generations removed. Imagine that! To breathe the air of an undiscovered country on a star we'll spot an eon from now. Your chest could pump with it, intoxicating you with scents no beast of Terra ever conceived.
I warn you now. You just may.
What then will the intervening period have contained? How many regrets can a mind contain before it bursts? Do you build your lungs of iron after you've hacked down the last tree and poured poison into the last river to save the bottom line of a corporation? Will it be humanity that sees those stars with all it's myriad impulses, fears, wonderments and incongruities?
It could be. I don't claim to know if our paths are the right ones. Mistakes made are locked in a place we cannot change them. The past is a scrawl of tracks in the dirt. It is lipstick on the mirror. What is done should be remembered and amended but if we seek backwards for our redemption we will find ourselves burnt in the fires that consumed our progenitors.
Ten thousand years from this date another fool may write this psalm again. She may rail and raggedly shriek that 'This doesn't have to happen this way! We know they did it this way before. Let us go another direction!'
Mayhap her voice to the contrary will be heard then.
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