What makes our planet precious? Its scarcity.

When I started this blog over ten years ago, I decided to

stay away from two topics:

Politics and religion.

My aim with this blog since my first post is to write

about stuff that anyone, anywhere, may find helpful.

Stuff that may assist in some way to broaden

our understanding of others and ourselves.

Stuff that hopefully can offer some nuggets of hope 

and encouragement for those times when we

may find ourselves troubled, confused, and finding

it hard to articulate with words our true thoughts,

feelings and state of mind.

For all the books(and they are many) that I have

read and are still reading, there is one topic that

I find very challenging to read about.

That topic is that which we have named Universe.

Watching a documentary on Space in general, an

ex-astronaut was asked if the experience of seeing

earth from ''far, far away'' had affected him.

His answer was that he and other fellow astronauts

 no longer identify with a specific nationality or culture,

instead they see themselves, and all citizens on earth,

as one people, one world.

(There is a word for this, and it is ''Overview effect''.

Which means a cognitive shift that affects some

astronauts when they view the earth from space.)

The doco ended with our view zooming out from

earth until earth was no longer visible and me,

experiencing a bad bout of vertigo.

In 1987, Ronald Reagan gave a speech before the

United Nations in which he had this to say:

''Perhaps we need some outside universal threat

to make us recognize our common bond.''

Unfortunately when he said this, many of his loyal

supporters had come to the conclusion that he

had gone a bit ''batty''. 

I'm not so sure he was wrong.....batty or not. 

There's even a movie suggesting that Reagan

may not have been so batty after all:

''Independence Day.''

Many of the astronauts who have viewed earth

from space, have said that they experienced unexpected

 overwhelming emotions and an increased sense of

connection to other people and Earth as a whole.

Exploring species as we are, we keep exploring space 

in search for life on other planets. As we do so, we gain 

more and more understanding of just how vast space is

and how small our precious little blue planet is.

At this point in time, as far as we know, Earth 

is alone in harboring life. (As we define life),

A lonely little blue dot in the midst of an unending

cosmic darkness.

Such being the case, that makes Earth precious

in my view.

Yet, somehow we behave as if it isn't.

Our history of behaviour on this precious planet

bear witness to our carelessness, indifference,

and rampant abuse of the bounty and beauty

it has, and is, providing for us.

Are we so caught up in our own little worlds

that we are failing to acknowledge that perhaps the

greatest threat to our planet may not be aliens

..............but us?

We can do better.

''Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need,

but not every man's greed.''

(Gandhi)

Maybe if we were to invest time and practice into 

being compassionate, charitable and understanding.....

More considerate in the way we treat our ''home'',(earth)

our fellow humans, our fellow critters, maybe then

we would come to truly value just how

precious our ''little blue dot'' is.

Scarcity, as I understand the word,

 is what makes something precious.

But, so far, we have yet to discover another

planet just like ours.

''Earth is not our property to

do with as we please.

We are mere its tenants.''

(Citizen Z)

about the image: ink on paper, editing in Elements

Feeling sad sometimes? Good. It means you care.......

Once a year I go through my wardrobe and

pick out clothes I no longer use.

After having made sure that all the items are clean and up 

to the standard needed in order to be put on a shelf to

 be sold, I take them to our local Salvation Army

OP-shop.

Usually, after handing over my bag/s of items, I spend a bit of time

browsing the shop because I have discovered that sometimes,

one can come across some amazing bargains.

As the saying goes; one person's trash can be another person's

treasure.

Wandering about the shop just a few days ago I came

across a sad looking soft toy that I at first thought

was some sort of bunny, but after a closer look,  realized

that it was a bear in a bunny costume.

Whatever he/she? was, there was just something about 

the expression on his "face'' that made me feel that

 I just had to bring him home with me.

When I had another closer look at him the next morning,

suddenly out of nowhere a word from the dark

recesses of my mind popped up: ''Weltschmertz''.

He, now named Buddy, was looking to me as if he was

experiencing ''Weltschmertz''.

Weltschmertz is a German word and translates into

''world-weariness'', and or ''world-pain''.

It's not a word I can remember ever having used before,

but somehow, there it was.

Time for some research methinks.

Before I could speak any English, I could speak

some German. Though I grew up in Sweden, my mother

and the rest of her relatives are all of German origin.

During the early days of W. W. II, my grand-father 

realized that in order to survive the war, he and his family

 had to leave Germany. 

As Sweden was a ''neutral'' country at that time,

that's the country to which my grand-father took his family.

Although both my grand-parents had died by the time

I hit double digits, surprisingly I do remember a lot of German

words. Somewhere along my early years I guess I must

have heard the word Weltschmertz used.

Anyway, my understanding of the word is that

it is a kind of prevailing sadness rooted in thoughts

and worries about the precarious and volatile state

of our planet and its inhabitants.

Although one could ask: is it not the same as

feeling depressed or worried about life in general?

Those in the know suggest that it is deeper than that.

They suggest that it is more of an existential weight

of feeling that our ideals of how the world ought

to be, could be, should be, just don't line up.

This then may result in a profound sense of 

disillusionment and loss of hope for a predictable future.

Insight: every time we get stuck 

in thinking along the lines of ''should be'', do

we perhaps ''bind'' ourselves with perceived expectations of

thinking that we all share the same values, moral convictions,

ideals and fundamental notions of what's ''right'' and ''wrong''?

What if we were to let go of hanging on to hard to

''how things/the world/people should be'' and

instead loosened our grip on our expectations?

What if we were to let go of our limiting expectations of

 how life/things ''should be'', then perhaps we would

be able to experience how life/things could be?

Life, as far as I can ascertain, is the more precious

 because it consists of so, so, so, so many possible

ways of interpreting and understanding our

life experiences.

Standing in front of the mirror one day, it

suddenly dawned on me that I have only ever

seen my own face through something else, not

with my own eyes. Even when we look at a photo

of ourselves, what we see may be very different

to what someone else sees.

In other words, if something(an experience) is dependent on

a mind, then it is always subjective.

Why so? Because those in the know say that we interpret 

whatever we experience through a number of filters such as:

 biases, perceptions, opinions, previous experiences

 and belief-systems.

 

That is, by-passing our expectations, filters and biases

may prove to be very difficult, if not impossible.

However, whatever our expectations, filters and biases

may be, once we become aware of them, they can

be altered.

In my view, having moments when one feels 

disillusioned, sad and weary when pondering some of the 

things us humans do to the world and each other, is okay.

Actually, sometimes sadness can motivate us to

seeking change, not only for ourselves, but also for others.

''The good life is not one immune to sadness but one

in which suffering contributes to our development.''

(Alain de Botton)

''If sadness comes your way,

and you wanna push it far away,

maybe ask yourself instead:

what it may be trying to say.''

(Citizen Z)

 

about the image: ink on paper, some editing in Elements