Be careful. Be very careful.

Here are a couple of quotes from a book by James Lovelock “Homage to Gaia” (Gaia, for those unfamiliar with the term, in this instance, is not the Greek goddess of the Earth, but refers to the now accepted concept that life on Earth is a self regulating community of organisms interacting with each other and their surroundings. By doing so the Earth controls its surface and atmosphere to keep the environment always benign for life). 

 

However, I thought these quotes quite interesting:-

 

Ø  “If, in caring for people, we fail to care for other forms of life on Earth then our civilization and we will suffer. I wonder if in the 21^St Century, when the grim effects of global warming become apparent, we will regret the humanist bias that led us to continue to burn fossil fuel and plunder the natural world for food.

Ø  I soon found out that salinity greater than five percent damaged almost all cells, whether from animals or plants…… This knowledge stayed with me and when later the idea of Gaia, a self regulating Earth, first came to my mind I began to wonder how the salinity of the sea had always kept below five percent. It has done so for over 3 billion years, otherwise marine life would not have survived. We still do not know what regulates salinity……I still do not know how ocean salinity stays below five percent; it is one of the puzzles posed by the notion of Gaia.”

 

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We dig up huge quantities of minerals leaving massive holes in the earth; we rip up millions of hectares of trees, cleared to plant crops; we use millions of tonnes of chemical fertilizers to try and replenish the soils degraded by over cultivation; we diminish the natural flows of rivers with unfettered irrigation; we poison the rivers and the oceans with chemicals which are the runoff from the degraded soils; we discard millions of tonnes of plastic, which end up in the sea; we overfish certain species of fish causing havoc with the food chain. 

 

We must all recognise that what we do individually or collectively, has consequences. And these are totally out of our control - we might not like them when we see what eventuates.  

 

But that is ok. There is money to be made, you see. And money is paramount. Cash is king.

 

Remember that we humans, all 7.4 billion of us, are like a thin layer of dust on the surface of the Earth. If every human being suddenly disappeared the Earth would quickly recover from our depredations and return to it beneficent state and a natural peace would be restored to that beautiful “blue” planet so evocatively seen from the surface of the moon. 

Paying the Ferryman

Life is not all doom and gloom. Nor is it always a fun experience. Happiness is elusive. It is necessary to arrive, always, at a balanced position where we are at the very least contented with our lot. 

Helpfulness and co-operation are the cornerstones of any society. We may be individuals each striving for our place in the world and striving to reach our self-determined goals but we can never do this on our own. Even the so called “self-made man” has had help from others along the way – no one can do this in total isolation. 

So what is the cost of ‘life’ to those who strive to reach their self-determined goals? What is the cost of ‘life’ to high achievers? What is the cost of ‘life’ to those people who opt for a career before all else? What is the cost, in lives, of a government’s oppressive or exploitative policies? What is the cost of ignoring the ancient, and very sensible, instruction to always treat others as you would like to be treated?

This proverb still applies: “Take what you want from life says God, take it, and pay!” 

In the present economic climate – even the long “tail” of the Global Financial Crisis is still affecting many people in many countries - it is not surprising that there is widespread concern about employment prospects, wages and financial security. So do not decry or be judgemental about someone’s choice to work as hard as they can to try and secure their financial future by whatever means at hand. That is their call and good luck to them. But they need to be very careful about the methods they use to “secure” their financial future. They must never forget that the Ferryman, who carries us all on our journey through life and across the River Styx to the afterworld, will demand recompense. This payment cannot be avoided and it is always paid in kind – we sow the seeds of the crop we will reap, like it or not. 

We will always have to accept the consequences of our actions and activities (good or bad) – and there are always consequences for every plan, for every activity and all behaviour. It is worth recalling the fate of Lehman Brothers, the ponzi schemes of Bernard Madoff, the greed and unethical behaviour of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKiline, the corrupt practices and fraud exposed by the Wall Street banks, Barclays Bank in the UK, the LIBOR scandal; the ineptitude and plain bad management of many European banks; the false accusations of “weapons of mass destruction” levelled by various politicians leaders against Iraq and the disastrous subsequent invasion of that country; the rotating leaders of Australia’s political parties and their questionable policies towards Australia’s First People; towards asylum seekers -  the list goes on and on and on... 

No one can ever know the full extent of the effects of any action they may take – we will never find any vantage point high enough from which to view the pattern of our life and how the threads interweave to form the patterns we have made – to see what good we do or what harm we have caused. We can never see the interplay between moral values which results in good and evil; in good or bad outcomes. This is why ethics is so important – it must be the first consideration of any person, company or organisation. By engaging in ethical conduct the welfare of people (staff, customers, patients, clients and voters) will be paramount; will be considered, first, before money, market share, first before shareholders, first before the CEO’s or any politician’s ego.

Remember this – burn it into your brain – without people there would be no business, no commerce, no industry and no money. Never forget that commerce and industry are for the benefits of people; that commerce and industry service the needs of people. People do not and never have serviced the needs of commerce and industry. To assume this is the case is to put the cart before the horse; to assume this is to consider people as tokens on some sort of economic game board - tokens to be moved at the behest of commerce and industry. This train of thought will lead only to business disaster and failure and the collapse of government (recall that Soviet Russia tried this and failed spectacularly); the Chinese are experimenting with this right now, to what end? One wonders at the possible outcome.

By being ethical – or at least being guided by ethical principles – will ensure that any business or personal action or activity is being driven by the best motives. To forget or ignore the undoubted fact that every action has a consequence (good or bad), in other words the “Law” of cause and effect, will itself cause problems. This is why there are ethical concepts such as trust, honesty, justice, kindness and compassion. All human actions and activities will have unexpected consequences but much of the unhappiness, the cruelty, the abuses will be minimised if the welfare and wellbeing of other human beings is considered first; by conducting all business and personal matters with ethics as the FIRST consideration. 

We have to live with ourselves and the results of our actions and behaviour. If ethics is disregarded or ignored to satisfy selfish ends the threads that entangle us all in the web of life will, eventually, trip up and bring down the perpetrators. 

The Ferryman is patient but will, eventually, demand payment, regardless. 

Consequences.

There are always consequences for anything we do. These consequences cannot be avoided or limited in any way – each one of us feels the effect of these, both negative and positive, on a daily basis. We do ‘good’ things and good things happen; we do ‘bad’ things and bad things happen.

The thing is that we can never, or at best very seldom, tie any specific action or behaviour or sequences of actions or behaviours, to any particular consequence or sequence of consequences. There are some obvious ones certainly – aim a gun at someone and pull the trigger and there is a very good likelihood of injuring or killing them; spend more money than you earn and you end up in debt. These are brutal, up front, in your face type consequences. What I am talking about are the subtle ones that are not immediately obvious; the ones that may take years to work their way through the ‘system’ as it were.

Take two current problems the World is facing at the moment, which are consequences of activities, actions, behaviours and thought patterns that go back many years – generations in fact. The first one is ‘climate change’ and the second is the Middle East (Israel, Gaza, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan).

Now whatever you think about the science behind the various claims and counter claims supporting or denying Man’s involvement in this debate one fact (to me) is obvious. We CANNOT continue to despoil, pillage and exploit the resources of the world as we are doing at the present moment. We cannot continue doing what we are now without suffering consequences of some sort. More of the same will be disastrous – there will be consequences we cannot predict but only sense.

I know that climate change – natural change – has always been a feature of geological time; ice-ages, extreme volcanic activity playing havoc with weather patterns and such like. This is natural and I have no argument with this – we can’t do anything about it anyway – it just happens and we (here we go) have to live with the consequences. My point is that by doing nothing we are not HELPING nature, the World, the Gaia, or whatever you call it, to recover naturally. And it will recover naturally – with time but we are not giving it that time.

Exploitative human activity is damaging the Nation and ‘our’ World to the detriment of all.

• Soil degradation. Much of our precious topsoils is either blown away (dust storms) or washed away (soil erosion) each year. Poor environmental planning and farming practices are the cause.

• Excessive use of chemical fertilizers. Because of the soil degradation more and more chemicals are being used which produce foods that are not as nutritious as they should be. They are deficient in essential minerals.

• Water. The essential element for life on earth. In the case of fresh water, in quantity, storage and quality, improvements are vital for the future health of the Nation and the World.

• Industrial activity. In the quest for ever increasing profits enormous quantities of toxic and polluting substances are being pumped into the atmosphere, the soil and water (both fresh and salt) of our Nation and the World. Huge tracts of land are being cleared of trees and other vegetation for what – profit?

These are just a few aspects of the immensely complex and interwoven matrix which I consider comes under the umbrella of ‘climate change’. We are in a position to do SOMETHING (my preferred option) rather than NOTHING (as advocated by the sceptics). Just think about it, even if, as some of the sceptics believe, the world is getting colder, not hotter, how will this help? It will just herald a new dark-age with shorter growing seasons.

From an economic point of view I suspect we are going to suffer, one way or another. This will be the consequence of thoughtlessness, of greed and the extreme capitalistic ideal of ‘profit’, no matter the cost (in the lives of all flora and fauna and economic cost).

Now for the second big problem – the conflict in the Middle East. This goes back a long time. Without going into a detailed history of the region one could really consider the problem as being the consequence of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (after the First World War) and the British withdrawal from India (and Pakistan) and Iraq and the West’s interference in Iran and Palestine. The immediate cause, I suspect, is the false idea that the ‘West’ can impose its will, its ideas and its manner of living on peoples who trying to work out their own responses to their environment and to world events.

To think, even for a moment, that peace will be established by the production of greater numbers of ever more complex weapons is madness. Most of us have still to learn that peace is not external, but an internal state, that then translates to all things external. How can there ever be peace if nations or groups of people are constantly thinking about and preparing for war? How can there ever be peace if people are constantly thinking violent and warlike thoughts? It is never going to happen.

A cessation of violence or truce may be established if someone or some nation subdues another by being stronger or having a bigger and better army. But that is not peace. Think of the Korean conflict in the 1950s and how about the various Israeli/Palestinian conflicts. There has never been peace in these areas. We need to think ‘outside the box’ and use our accumulated wisdom in a rational, measured and reasonable manner.

There is no peace because the underlying problem has never been addressed – injustice, perceived or actual, is at the root of most conflicts and will be the root of the Middle East and the Korean problems. Sort out the injustices (perceived or otherwise) and the reason for the violence is removed. There is nothing that rankles and festers in the mind as much as injustice. If individuals have a feeling they have been hard done by and bear a grudge because of this then, rightly or wrongly, they will feel justified in fighting (as they may think) to redress the injustice.

Some thoughts on God

I have always been hesitant about mentioning God in my posts. I certainly believe in an ‘essence’, in a ‘something’ which is above and beyond us all (certainly me) and yet of which we are a part. Call this the ‘Absolute’, God, Allah – ‘It/He/She’ is all the same thing so a name is not really that important.

The struggle I have is to introduce the subject without getting people offside, because one’s beliefs are so personal. I follow no particular brand of religion – I prefer the more philosophical side of things – principally because I have never liked the idea of being ‘boxed in’ by the dogma and ideology of any particular religion.

Now I am certainly not out to try to convince anyone that my concept of God is the best or the only concept – I stress that this is my concept, seen through my eyes, coloured with my interpretation of my experiences of my life.

Some might not believe in God at all. I am comfortable with that – that is their call. In my case I seem always to have had an ‘understanding’ (the best word I can think of) that God exists. In my understanding God is not a fearsome being ‘up there’ that I must abase myself before. Not at all. ‘My’ God is supportive, omnipotent, all encompassing and one that gave me free will to do as I please, with the proviso that I need to be aware that each and every action, thought and deed of mine will have a consequence – positive, negative, good, bad or neutral. Therefore I ‘create’ my own world, the world I live in with my values and my understanding. This means that it is not God who brings me happiness or unhappiness or suffering. No! I attract or draw these to me by my actions (or inaction) – the Law of Cause and Effect deals justly and follows its course to the end. I am responsible –“I am the Master of my Fate; I am the Captain of my Soul” (from ‘Invictus’, by W.E. Henley).

I ask myself, “Where is God?” If God is omnipotent then there can be no place where God is not present; God must be everywhere. Therefore He must be in me, in you, in birds, in fish, in plants, in fact in all living things. Now I have witnessed death and seen the light of Life slowly fade from the eyes of the being that is dying and I have wondered what it was that withdraws its essence, its energy from the body lying there – that was animated and warm and which is now still and growing cold. Has Life, God, the essence – whatever name It is given, cast off that particular manifestation, like an old coat, because it no longer serves a useful purpose in the great scheme of things?

I don’t know and I will never know. But it is worth thinking about because my beliefs colour my everyday thoughts and actions and make me the person I am, doing what I do and the manner of the doing.

It is all me – I have the free will to do as I please, but I can never forget that I am responsible for my actions and the consequences that inevitably flow from them. Remember the old proverb (Spanish I believe), “Take what you want from life,” says God, “Take it, and pay.”