Geologically Speaking
By Glenn Kreisberg
I’d like to say, geologically speaking; the Human Race has existed for the blink of an eye and will probably exist for just a blink or two more, at best. The vast majority of this planets existence took place without the presence of Humans or our influence. And in the course of tens or hundreds of thousands or if we're lucky millions of years, this is likely to be the case again, undoubtedly.
It is arrogant and self centered of ourselves to presume we can destroy this world. We can not, but we've certainly acquired the ability to destroy ourselves, with the Earth going on just fine (perhaps quite better) without us.
In fact, for the first time of our puny existence the greatest danger to us is ourselves since we now have the ability, with our technology and sheer numbers, to impact our planet in ways that were previously only relegated to the forces of nature.
Perhaps Humans on Earth have reached the point where we have now become our own force of nature. Maybe this new force will simply run its own course as do all other forces of nature. And of course it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the effects of all forces of nature, whether earthquakes, tsunami, volcanoes, cometary impact or weather, have one thing in common; they are inevitable.
Could it be the lost lessons we have yet to relearn from the clues left by ancient cultures are a warning to the impermanence of civilization and societal structure as attributed to by the cycles of nature imposed upon us by time: A warning telling us to prepare in some way for the inevitable?
As a people we must learn these lessons from the distant past. We must solve the mystery in a way that allows the message to become renewed in our culture so as to be understood and past down for another 10,000 years.
Shiva, the Hindu deity and the destroyer of the world shares a trinity with Brahma the creator and Vishnu the preserver. There is no cycle without Shiva. For the cycle to continue, destruction must occur. No question a paradox. I was born and raised Jewish, married a Christian woman who just gave me a Hindu wrist bangle for Christmas. There is a certain paradox there that speaks to the divine, where experiencing something or someone’s otherness offers us a path to our own salvation.