Rain and Spinning Tops

Before spending time reading this post, please consider clicking on this link to view an amazing example of the TED series of lectures.  This one is by Wade Davis, an anthropologist, explorer, author and contributor to National Geographic.  Although his talk is now a few years old, the message still applies - and his presentation manner is beyond impressive.  (Maybe do a double-click to "open the link in a new window".)  

http://www.ted.com/talks/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures.html

If you went to that site and returned, or if you skipped it for now, please continue here first with a short story -

As Rod Serling used to say in introducing a surreal vignette on the Twilight Zone, “Submitted for your consideration...”:

    Two men are playing chess in a parlor car on an overnight train, rolling across the flat land of open country.  The train rumbles rhythmically along, slightly swaying the soft, overhead light and the game proceeds with undisturbed concentration, such that they don’t notice it’s begun to rain outside.  A few drops spattered on the window next to them just as a white bishop takes a black pawn, and before the captured piece is set aside, little diagonal rivulets are already streaking down the dark glass.  
    In a while, their focus deepens; the strategy intensifies because they have each lost a handful of pieces to the other.  The rain has intensified also; they’ve each noticed it - and the sharp flashes of lightning - but neither breaks the silence with the mention of it.  The door at the end of the car opens just briefly and a man and woman are shouting above noise from the loud clatter of the train and the claps of thunder.   She is growing hysterical and is worried that the storm could wash out the upcoming bridge just before the next town.  Trying to calm her, he grabbed her by the shoulders and spoke in a measured voice.  With a hushed, but insistent tone, she said she it had happened once about ten years ago in a storm like this one.  
    By now, the chess players and the others in the car were all glaring at them and none caught a glimpse through the rain-streaked windows of a figure outside, silhouetted by lightning, waving his arm and swinging a lantern.  They couldn’t know the engineer was momentarily distracted and hadn’t seen it either.  The door opened again for an instant and the couple hustled back out and the chess game resumed.  One chess player muttered to the other, “Some people have no consideration for others.  Imagine all that fuss over a little rain.”


The point of this story is to highlight the human tendency to view the world narrowly, passively, and with a short memory.  With each passing generation we are less intimately connected with nature and are less attuned to what it has to tell us.  Case in point, just reading the previous phrase might raise some eyebrows; how can nature tell us anything?


Based on reading way too much (depressing) information about climate change, it seems that the delicate balance of nature is entering a phase of wobbling like a spinning top that is about to go careening off the table.  This is a serious analogy.  The laws of physics point to exponential compounding of co-efficients in situations where decay begins to assert its force over dynamic balance.  Have you ever lost control of your bicycle or skateboard just after it started to wobble and then wildly gyrate?  At a certain, irreversible point, correction attempts can't overcome wilder gyrations in the moment just before the crash.  The global ecosystem isn't there yet, obviously.  Corrections might still have good effect, but how much longer do we want to wait?


Climate change skeptics tend to be politically conservative and suspect a leftist influence on scientific research and reporting.  They prefer to believe what the fossil fuel industries want them to believe, it much easier and more profitable.  Skeptics should note that some of their favorite institutions: the Department of Defense, all their contractors and all the major insurance companies are not the least bit skeptical.  For almost a decade, that pinko-commie bunch of tree huggers at the Pentagon have been strategically planning for security threats caused by climate change.  


I've mentioned before that the idea of excarnation should be given consideration.  Suicide or euthanasia have long been taboo subjects in our society, but it easy to see that these ideas, if not commonly spoken, will become more prevalent as personally-plausible options in the coming years.  Eventually, public discussion and policy changes will have to follow.  Dignitas, Exit International and a host of other voluntary euthanasia organizations are pushing the difficult agenda in the right direction.


That option will take care of removing the body from the suffering in this life, but is that all there is to attend?  My personal take is very much in line with the teachings of Eckart Tolle, who encourages an intentional, practiced detachment from the world of form.  That is, take care that your concerns do not utterly dominate the stillness that is within.  For almost all of us, our concerns have done that for nearly all of our lives.  But the practice of giving increasing attention to that stillness could help to ease your transition out of this life whenever that time comes.  And, it will make life meanwhile much richer.

When the passengers on the Titanic in the frigid north Atlantic found themselves without enough lifeboats, they had three basic options to briefly consider:  Panic, pray, or open some champagne and tell the band to keep playing.  After thoughtfully considering all the consequences, one finds praying is the only sensible thing to do.  Don't pray to be spared; you wouldn't really want to be a survivor in some apocalyptic scenario.  Pray in stillness - without any thoughts at all.  Let your concerns be quiet, they'll take care of themselves.