Some people are sure what "life" means, and what the word "need" means, and they don't even wonder about terms like "certain things." This page is for those who see beyond such a mindset, and wonder. Wonder if maybe human reality is more nuanced than that perspective, that maybe even everything is relative, and that even terms like "up" and "down," and "good" and "bad" can be questioned, analyzed, and reconsidered.
By "life," maybe we should ask "Whose life?" Do non-human animal lives count, and lives of plants? What about the lives of future living beings?
By "need," do we mean "need what we happen to be wanting right now," or "need something that if we don't get it soon, we'll all die?" Or something in-between, and, if so, where in-between? And, really, who is this "we"?
By the time we get to the term "certain things," already we're suspecting that much of what is said and written by humans is so unthought out that maybe the whole idea that we're effectively communicating with one another is faulty.
These kinds of questions are absolutely necessary right now because Life on Earth as we have known it until now is being destroyed irrevocably by unthought-out, inconsiderate-of-others human behavior. No one in particular is responsible for this. It just happened. People weren't thinking. Weren't too worried about the limitations and vulnerabilities of the planet we live on.
At the right, the structure of a Chlorophyll A molecule shows a magnesium atom, Mg, at its very center. That atom is attached to four nitrogen atoms, N. It's the same with Chlorophyll B. This means that without the elements magnesium and nitrogen, photosynthesis can't take place. Without photosynthesis, there'd be no oxygen in the air. Without oxygen, no living things beyond a handful of recently discovered microbes and lower animals can stay alive. Life on Earth in any meaningful-to-humans manner simply is impossible without atoms of magnesium and nitrogen.
The teaching here is NOT that suddenly -- if we truly care about the meaningful continuance of Life on Earth -- we need to become obsessive about the conservation of magnesium and nitrogen in the Earthly biosphere. Rather, it is that each of us desperately needs to start rethinking about our relationship with the rest of Life on Earth.
We need to...
- question what we're told
- grope for adequate-feeling definitions and meanings
- trust science -- despite knowing that a very few researchers falsify and consciously misinterpret data for their own benefit -- because we have nothing better to guide us
- try to find something within ourselves that acknowledges some kind of higher, maybe spiritual, orientation/set-of-meanings/hope
- try to live our lives as if we really believe what, during our most lucid moments, our minds tell us is the way we need to live, and, during our most loving moments, feel that we ought to live that way
To get us started, here is one solution, in a small Mayan village in Yucatán, México:
