I have tried very hard to keep too many of my personal details out of this blog, but today that may change a little. The delay that I spoke of in my previous post may be extended a bit longer than I had originally anticipated. I suppose, on the other hand, this is a blog post itself, so perhaps I am not as delayed for that reason.
In situations like the one I find myself in, I am reminded of Plato. Specifically, of his Theory of Forms. He was so challenged by the idea of change that he came up with an imaginary realm where everything remained the same. A permanent, unchanging realm which clearly had to be superior to the realm we each find ourselves in that is constantly degenerating with every passing moment.
It is further amusing to me to think about such things, as I am also reminded of Socrates, and his dislike for the sophists of his time. He seemed particularly put out by how sophists would teach others to argue without evidence, much as we observe presently occurring in the United States. Logic and reason almost literally tossed aside in favour of appeals to emotion and appeals to tradition. Which, once again brings me back to the problem of change.
The world is changing. This is nothing new. In fact, it has been changing the whole time, and we have collectively been resisting that change for as far back as has been recorded. Once again, thinking about Plato and Socrates because they were from about 2500 years ago. People from 2500 years ago were already plagued with concerns of change. So it should be no surprise that we are plagued with it today as well.
But perhaps there is a difference between then and now. It seems to me the rate of change is increasing. That things now are changing much more quickly than they did back then. But the more I think about that, I realise that perhaps that also is untrue. And I start to think about a rubber band powered plane.
Over the many millennia that humans have existed, we have been resisting change. We see our environments, and how challenging they are, and we try to make them easier to deal with. Foraging for food is a long and time consuming process that does not reliably produce enough sustenance for many people; but if we instead plow some land and put the seeds into the ground in regular rows, manually pour water over them regularly, eventually we can generate a much more reliable source of food. Wind and rain and snow are tough on human bodies, sometimes even fatal, so we create structures we can hide in to protect us from these elements. And clothes to wear. And with all of these things, as time progresses, we try to make better and better versions that last longer and longer so that we can enjoy them more and more.
We find ourselves in an environment that is constantly changing and we spend most of our time finding ways to cease that change as much as we can. Even our lifespans are much, much longer than they’ve ever been. An ever increasing number of humans are spending their entire lives trying to make it so that others will never have to deal with death at all. Life itself, ceasing to have the ultimate change of ending.
With all this resisting of change, has anyone considered that we are winding up a rubber band? Tighter and tighter the band becomes, ever increasing the potential energy stored that will eventually be released. We resist the changes in our environments, instead of learning to adapt to those changes, making the shock of enduring the forced change more and more severe. I live in an air conditioned home, where the temperature has been maintained at about 21 degrees Celsius all the time, despite how much hotter or colder the outside might be. But how does my HVAC system do this? It takes the extra heat from inside my home and dumps it outside. Or it generates additional heat in order to raise the temperature inside. Ironically, both processes involve increasing temperature in the environment as a whole, outside of my home.
Global warming, as it was previously referred to, is a real thing. Not just because of green house effects or excessive carbon dioxide being dumped into the atmosphere. We are increasing the over all temperature of our world by purposely executing combustive and oxidising reactions with the intent to create motion or some other artificial activity. The end purpose is convenience and luxury. The end purpose is to make our lives easier.
We grow extra animals for food, because meat is simply too tasty to give up. We justify this by suggesting the utilitarian ethical argument is the one that makes sense, and more animals means more over all happiness. Of course it is a good thing to eat meat. But the process is increasing the heat as well.
The world keeps changing, and not only are we trying harder and harder to resist that change, but we are making decisions that accelerate that change. We resist, winding the rubber band, and it snaps back even harder each time. Had I spent more time learning to acclimatise myself to the hotter summers and colder winters, and I wouldn’t need to spend so much time fixing my air conditioner or sealing my home from drafts.
This is what humans do. We do not adapt to our world. We force the world to adapt to us. We change our environment to suit us. To hell with what the world might want. So when the world needs to move in a particular direction, we do our very best to prevent that from happening. When a species of animal is about to go extinct, mostly because it is no longer adapted or fit for the new environment that has come about, we do our best to breed those dying species in captivity in order to preserve their presence in the world. But what if those species need to go away?
I will acknowledge that in many (arguably most) cases, the demise of whole species seems to be directly related to the activities of humans, and as such we ought to bear some responsibility for what is happening. But is the answer to try and force their continued existence in our new world? Or would it not make much more sense for us to stop changing the world into what we believe it ought to be, which happens to be an environment that they are not suited to? Does any of this make sense?
If one believes in Darwin and this theory of “survival of the fittest,” one ought to realise that as the world changes (for any reason) the circumstances of fitness change too. Those who are fit for a particular environment at a particular time are often no longer fit in a different environment or at a different time. Or both. And our world continues to change, so that which is fit changes too. When I was a child, it was not a good idea to be a “geek.” To be one often included ostracization and a lot of pain. But now, being a geek is praised.
There are countless examples I could offer of change like this. Cases where to be a thing at one time was once good and is now bad, or the reverse. The rules are changing as much as the world itself does. There is no remaining static. In fact, it is this desire for the static that I think is the biggest problem. The challenge for perfection, not recognising that what is perfect in one instance ceases to be in the next. Perfection itself is imperfect.
This is where I find myself today. In the crux of change. Trying to come to terms with the fact that my environment is no longer the same as it once was. I remember, years ago, what it was like to live in this place. But now, it has changed, and the rules have changed. The people around me have changed. My job has changed. My family has changed. Relationships have changed. Everything has changed.
I find myself in the precarious situation of having to make a choice: do I fight as hard as I can to preserve that memory of a time long past, or do I forge a new path through the wilderness and try to become something better suited to my new environment? I know what I ought to do. But this decision is not mine alone. Those around me, those I love, have their say in what comes as well.