Monday Meditations: Rotting Life and Decomposition Phobia

The domesticated human is afraid of death and more precisely- afraid of decomposition. Dead human bodies are sealed in boxes before they are allowed to enter the earth, safe now from every remixing with the land that birthed and sustained them, safe now from ever returning and being part of the next cycle of life. The domesticated human removes themselves from the landscape, from the eco-system. They take food, they take air and they take in minerals and nutrients, but never return them- as is the bargain life makes with itself. 

The domesticated human is a thief and a parasite. The domesticated humans takes and takes and does not give back. So the question arises- why not?

The domesticated human is afraid to die, afraid to rot, afraid to give back, afraid to return. Do they fear retribution, angry vengeance from the rest of the earthy community if they allow their body and perhaps their spirit to rejoin the earth from which it was composed? 

Do they fear something else?

Do they fear many other things?

Denial of Death - Denial of Consequences

We are in denial of death. We measure success by how much we get bigger, every year, without end. We declare war on disease and old age and mortality. We are appalled every time anybody dies.

We need to welcome death. Death is the creator of life. Dying, silently, painfully, violently, peacefully- however- is what generates momentum that creates energy, space, resources and opportunity for the next generation.

Karl Marx famously declared on his death bed that last words were for those who hadn't said enough in life. I would argue that fear of death is for those amongst us who haven't done enough in life. If I am right in my assertion, then this speaks volumes for our culture. 

Death creates life. Decomposition is fuel for the next bloom of life cycle. Everything has its turn in the sun, and everything must surrender to death eventually.  If we do not admit that we must die, and take this truth into account, we will fill the world with so much life that there is no longer enough death to feed our next generation. And then, like the locusts who clear the plains of Africa with their hunger and die in a blaze of glory to feed the next generation- we will learn the hard way that death will not be denied.

Monday Meditations: Rotting Life and Decomposition Phobia

The domesticated human is afraid of death and more precisely- afraid of decomposition. Dead human bodies are sealed in boxes before they are allowed to enter the earth, safe now from every remixing with the land that birthed and sustained them, safe now from ever returning and being part of the next cycle of life. The domesticated human removes themselves from the landscape, from the eco-system. They take food, they take air and they take in minerals and nutrients, but never return them- as is the bargain life makes with itself. 

The domesticated human is a thief and a parasite. The domesticated humans takes and takes and does not give back. So the question arises- why not?

The domesticated human is afraid to die, afraid to rot, afraid to give back, afraid to return. Do they fear retribution, angry vengeance from the rest of the earthy community if they allow their body and perhaps their spirit to rejoin the earth from which it was composed? 

Do they fear something else?

Do they fear many other things?

Death Throes

Would be prophets step onto dangerous ground when they point to signs of the end. I hope I am wrong, but I see signs everywhere that our culture, our global empire is a wooly mammoth slowly drowning in the famous tar pits. 

 

Everywhere I look, I see a system designed for and predicated on the idea of limitless ongoing growth struggling to manage now that growth has slowed or stopped. A system with no wiggle room is now trying to cha-cha at the edge of a very steep cliff.

Our civilization is living beyond our means. We are spending more than our pay check brings in each month and are constantly borrowing from our children's college fund.

To break the  metaphor into real concrete data, the earth has biological capital that all of the species on the planet can use. This biological capital is composed of all the living things on the planet. The capital replenishes itself by breeding new life. We use the capital by ending life in order to turn that life into energy.

The system is okay so long as there is enough life available to replace the lost capital. When a species no longer is able to replenish itself, that species goes extinct. When an ecosystem no longer has enough species in the ecosystem to allow the other species to replenish themselves, that ecosystem collapses and all species there risk extinction.

When we use more of the biological capital in the ecosystem than the ecosystem can replace, we diminish the system. That is to say we cause whole species to disappear and we make the whole system more brittle.

We currently use roughly 150% of the available biological capital. In other words. Our biological salary is $1000 per week, but we spend $1500 per week. We are in the hole week after week, and we are increasing our spending.

I said that we are spending our children's college fund, but we are actually spending our children's water fund, and food fund, and energy fund and oxygen fund and life fund.

The inheritance that we are leaving to our children is devastation. And we are doing it so fast, that we will be there to explain to them what we left them when that devastation arrives. I hope you look forward to your child asking you this...

"Mom? Dad? Why did you destroy my future?"

And I hope you realize that they will be right to blame you.