76 more years win insanity for life

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague..."
- the Matrix

Did you catch that? "...until every natural resource is consumed"

I have always admired wisdom - real wisdom. Not the kind we cavalierly toss about in the media, label political leaders with in election years, bestow on military leaders, aggrandize money-makers with, rather the wisdom born from careful thought, holistic thinking, kind application, careful reflection and consideration of future. I've also always have a soft spot for fore-thought and inspired thinking. I have always appreciated simplicity as well - a building block of wisdom really - like the kind many folks without the financial luxury of waste apply to their daily lives. In my travels around this planet I have never assumed myself to be the wisest human, I not only make mistakes, more consequentially I don't always use all that confetti of wisdom scattered about my feet. I have sought the wise, tried to learn from their experience of knowledge, and understand how to figure things out ahead of the mistake, the inevitable, the painful.

I was pedaling home from the market a few days ago and spotted a new billboard (an aesthetically abominable idea to start with) ad in my neighborhood (above.) I pulled from the bike path in amazement. As millions of barrels of oil and millions of cubic feet of methane gas spew from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico creating death zones and dead zones, I tried to fathom the stupidity of the advertising looming over me. Did centenarian petroleum company 76 (now owned by ConocoPhillips) really draw on a spec of its 120 years of experience before suggesting that we would, or should, still be running on gasoline that far into the future?

I also found the graphic subtly interesting with its hose draining from the future and its nozzle satiating the current. But then that was the ultimate virus talking - corporation marketing department - selling, exploiting, mindless and virally greedy. (Remember - Viruses are not plants, animals, or bacteria, but they are the quintessential parasites of the living kingdoms.)

I'm not anti-corporate, I've contracted to many, I'm typing this blog on one, I photographed the above picture with one, I accessed the internet to share these thoughts with one, and before the day is over I'll ride, eat, crap into, and sleep on, several more. They are us. One of my issues with the anti-BPness going on is the irresponsible We. We refuse anything but cheap gas, and they are doing their cheapest to provide it. They are us. If you don't drive a car, buy shipped products, and don't have any plastic in your world, then you are not they, and you have a reason to be uncontrollably upset.

If they are us and us are they, then we have at least 40 years selfish procrastination to stare in the mirror at.

John Stewart's The Daily Show staff assembled one of the most painfully poignant, satirical sad video montages of historical procrastination I have ever seen. It ran, I watched, I wanted to cry. Instead I laughed that kind of pained laugh one does when the truth is so excruciating, insane, and depressing, that laughter is the only survival tool despite how wrong it feels.

P-a-u-s-e
(watch the clip first)

Maybe we aren't good at wisdom anymore? Seeing it, absorbing it, understanding it, and most importantly using it. If I can draw anything from all those travels and quiet perambulations with the thoughts and actions of wiser folks than me, it might be that we no longer think, no, not think, rather believe, that wisdom is a survival requirement. Or maybe we have decided wisdom must fit into our lives to be believed, be more media relevant, app'd to our iPhones... hmmm? Maybe just cheaper? Like our gas, maybe we want cheaper wisdom. The price of the old wisdom is just too high - patience, tolerance, kindness, listening, thinking, and reflection.

"I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make that change"

- MJ