A long time ago I repeated a creation myth I once heard, that 'god' was so lonely that s/he tore him/herself in half so s/he could have someone else to hold; and thus creation.

Of all the creation myths I've heard this is the one that resonates most deeply.

I often think about the time when the entirety of our society has destroyed itself (most likely with carbon emissions), what will future civilizations say of ours, as archaeologists do of the ruins they study. I think that it'll be probably that our civilization is one that could not control itself.  We have no controls on those who are most powerful despite our attempts with the law supposedly applying itself equally to everyone.

The problem with our out-of-control society is the rich who have everything are off in-search of a new way to quench the pain of existence. Most of us have felt this pain as achievement: and now what? Some are so lucky they have enough money to buy all the shiny baubles that are glittery and fun but when they actually get them there is nothing but disappointment, or there are new problems to solve - bags full of new toys are opened and once the packaging is discarded, there is just another thing that needs to be found room for so it can be put away, emptiness conquers all physical things.

Constant distraction, whether it is TV, a movie, a party, noise, work, chasing money to pay off the cost of living in our shiny shiny world, the reality is we are hiding from the pain of how meaningless the whole thing is.

The only thing I've found that isn't meaningless is the connection to another human being, someone I have a connection with.

In some sense we can empathize with everyone to some extent, you can feel anyone's humanity if you have a mind to, but we have all trained ourselves to block the experience of another human's humanity as well. I am sure we've all experienced the emotional overload of ads from charities on TV. There is only so much sensationalism we can endure before it becomes overwhelming, so overwhelming that we feel literally powerless to do anything about it. TV makes everything so big and by comparison the individual feels small.

But the connection to another human being is a fragile thing. There is so much someone can throw at others before they turn around and say 'I cannot deal with this anymore'; when in reality all they want is to feel a connection. It's been found the best way to make people give up drugs is by giving them a meaningful connection to other human beings where they are welcomed, useful and necessary; a relationship based on equality, where things can't happen without them.

The connection we all seek is based on love but it doesn't mean it is sexual, all friendship is based on love. It is hard to care deeply for all people because it is based on forgiveness for all those things that we have to deal with with each other.

I hate quoting the Bible and especially St Paul, but he got I Corinthians 13:4-8 right:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails...

Love (and probably information or knowledge) is the only thing that quenches the needs of the soul. And only someone who has all they need can say that. The poor have to keep their head above the water to stop themselves from drowning in our society. One missed payment and their lives come tumbling down, whether they have love or not. Meanwhile the rich run about the planet searching for something to ease their pain - the only thing is money won't stop their loneliness or their pain. The rich think that if they are rich they will eventually find someone to satisfy their pain but the only people they find will be searching through all the shiny baubles too.

The Blue Manakin is this bird where the alpha male bird makes other male blue manakins dance so he can 'score' with the female bird, but only if the female is sufficiently impressed by their dance. In this video we see the males performing a complicated dance all so one male bird can potentially mate with the female which is sitting there watching the display. (Originally sourced from the BBC, David Attenborough's The Life of Birds)

I think we are seeing a similar display in human society: men work in concert with each other to make sure any one man can mate by minimizing  women's access to money. Men keep women out of jobs, preferentially promote men, ensure women are paid less for the same job, and go about destroying the planet so men can show off and attract a mate.

In our society, nothing makes raising children easier than a plentiful source of money. So women are selecting for men who are rich and have a good earning capacity. As we see, the female blue manakin is bland in comparison to the male, as women tend to be in our society. Women tend to make themselves bland in our society to maximize their chances of mating - they strive for mediocrity. For instance, women strive for a generically small size, generic intelligence, generic accomplishments, and society is always downplaying the accomplishments of women. The only thing society prizes about women is their appearance and they strive to make themselves relatively indistinguishable from each other.

On the other hand, it is men who perform the great deeds and have all the great accomplishments and all of society plays along so men can stand out from each other to woo and impress women. A man who stands out maximizes his chances of attracting a female mate for breeding opportunities.

However, these days the planet doesn't need population growth and science has helped us overcome many of the illnesses that afflicted previous generations. It is ridiculous devoting half the population to the dangerous and often boring activity of bearing and raising children.

Our society should be striving for quality of life and options for everyone, not just for one gender. And while many of us still want a partner to share (part of) our life with, it doesn't necessarily need to result in or be because of reproduction.

We are animals and as much as like to think we aren't,  we are.  If you think there was some designer, then that designer did a hell of a lot of cheating, because we not only share a lot of our DNA with monkeys,  we also share much of it with other mammals all the way down to our skeleton which we share with invertebrates. Even trees share much of our DNA. There are modifications here and there but the similarity is unmistakable, even and including how women give birth, just like other mammals.

We are animals because we need to do things other animals do, like sleep, eat, we have a powerful urge to mate and reproduce to pass our genes on. We need sunlight and nature and use the bathroom.

Because we depend on our environment we must care for the environment as a means of caring for ourselves. We depend on our atmosphere to protect us from radiation and to breathe. We depend on plants to produce oxygen and recycle our carbon dioxide. We must live in a symbiotic relationship with the environment but we don't. We pretend it is purely at our disposal.

This is because our brain is so powerful.  We have developed stories that are fantasies about our origins, such as believing we were created distinct from other animals because we somehow think we are special and thus these stories a tapestry of superstitions that are religion.

We depend on each other completely for our understanding of reality that we need contact with other human beings for our sanity and these stories we tell each other shape us into who we are.

We are clever animals who have evolved hands to be able to craft and utilize tools. We have also learned the value of communicating, storing and sharing information.  Indeed, some of our landmark discoveries has been the storing and transmission of information,  cave paintings,  the Gutenberg press, math, telegraph, cinema, radio, television, computers and the Internet. 

But our experience of reality depends largely on who and what we believe.  And knowing what is fiction can be difficult if we believe it. It's nearly impossible to find the flaws in our own thinking (or believing) and this can make it difficult to communicate with others who don't believe what we believe. It's nearly impossible to be objective enough to see our own hypocrisy, even when we are aware we may have flaws in our own thinking. Since we attach so much importance to sanity it can be deeply distressing to find out our beliefs are wrong.

I used to know a born again Christian who delighted in telling me about her favorite t-shirt which said: Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven. She didn't realize this was her license to be completely immoral.

Our society is totally dependent on our environment. From the water we use to the air we breath, and we have no where else to go if we ruin our beautiful planet.

I don't know if the scientists who talk about models of carbon in our atmosphere are accurate or if I even believe them, but my question is, what if they are right? Do I really need to repeat that we have no where else to go?

We do know about the greenhouse effect. We know that is definitely true because all you have to do is go sit in your car on a hot day with the windows up. The car can be 20-50F hotter on the inside of the car than outside. The reason the inside is hotter is because of the carbon dioxide, CO2, content in the air. Sunlight is entering the car and pumping energy into the CO2 molecules.

This is a mini-version of why we are afraid of the greenhouse effect on the planet. The sun is pumping energy into the earth's atmosphere and we keep adding CO2 into our atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, and wood... Its pretty obvious the oil companies have a vested interest in denying there is a problem with using oil, and discrediting others as valid and viable energy sources. But really, should we jeopardize our home just so some extremely rich people can continue to make a profit? What I don't understand is its their home too.

The rich make it clear what kind of environment they want to live in. They want to be surrounded by trees and green grass, a more natural environment. The poor aren't deemed worthy of nature.

This photo is from the Naples garbage crisis in 2010, and this is by far not the worst of them. Yes, its a garbage crisis but it is testament to how much junk we throw away every day. Everyday we buy stuff only to turn around and throw it away. All the packaging from the food we eat, last seasons clothes, shoes, sunglasses, gadgets which were cool when we bought them, which we now throw away, broken furniture... our whole economy is based on buying shit we don't need. The end result of this garbage is that it must be disposed of somewhere, and the planet has to deal with that too. This is the same reason why nuclear energy is not an option. We have to store the waste from reactors for centuries, longer than the concrete bunkers we store the drums full of the radioactive waste from the nuclear power plants will last. Nuclear power is a temporary solution and we are making a giant nightmare for the coming generations who will have to deal with our waste.

I have been arguing for a while now we need new economic models where most of what we buy doesn't end in landfill. Everything, including our houses are pretty much disposable. Designed so they last only so long before we need to repair them or replace them.

Corporations don't even consider they are making a profit unless they make a larger profit each year and even then it must be larger than what it was projected to be. When corporations do make profits larger than predicted, their CEOs are glorified as stock prices are bound to go up.

We have been conditioned to buy junk by television as an opiate to the boredom and more importantly the powerlessness we have over our lives. This makes us ripe to direct our anger at those who disagree with us. The way our economy is functioning is destroying not only our planet, it is destroying our country and ourselves. But more on this later.