Welcome...
To The House of Fun...(© Madness)
The Human race is a strange thing, really.
We evolved on a world over hundreds of thousands of years, a world full of life, danger and plenty - a world that already had other Human-like peoples dotted over its surface, all trying to eke out a living in their way on a planet so different to anything we may be exposed to today. But only our species, Homo Sapiens, had evolved enough, had developed the curiosity, the drive, and the brain power required to get us out of our homelands and explore the world around us.
What was just over the horizon? What was around that bend in the river? What’s across that ocean?
Eventually, we made tracks in the sand and the mud, crossed those rivers, climbed those mountains, walked towards the horizon until we could no longer see our homelands behind us. We were explorers…
Eventually, we came face to face with the other human-like peoples dotted here and there. What happened in those fateful first meetings is still being looked at and understood - but there must have been a mix of fear and fascination on all sides. Who were these strange-looking new people coming into our areas of the land? What could they bring that was new? Would it fundamentally change the world they lived in, had been living in for hundreds of thousands of years?
We know there was some interbreeding going off, so doubt and mistrust obviously got put to one side on more than one occasion, but on the whole the tribes lived separate lives. The other species’ eventually died off, unable to cope with how their world was changing around them, unable to adapt quickly enough or interbreeding so much that disease and abnormalities too their toll.
But our Human species survived even though it may have taken thousands of years, we had that extra piece of intelligence, our brain having the capacity to learn and share, we made advances with our hunting technology, we invented bows and arrows to bring down creatures both up in the canopies and in the thickest jungles, then learnt how to farm and harvest, how to keep livestock so that there was no longer any need, on the whole, to wander from place to place.We learnt how to tame and take control of our surroundings instead of simply reacting to it…
And then we built fences.
Primarily to keep the livestock in, of course.
And then, eventually, to keep others out.
Our species grew and expanded across the lands. We built larger and larger homesteads, turning them into cities where we could sustain the growth. We became territorial, claiming land that may or may not belong to someone else - or that we simply assumed was free to take regardless of ownership. We got antsy when that claim was disputed, then angry as disputes and talking fell apart, started throwing things at each other when things begin to escalate. Eventually, someone won, a pause in hostilities occurred, discussion and dialogue ensued, disputes were mediated and agreements made. Perhaps some form of trade is initiated and everyone ends up happy…
Until the next time someone was looked at ‘in a funny way’…
But in the meantime, defence becomes more and more important as our territories get larger. We invent weapons that are made bigger, heavier; more effective in their ability to inflict harm and damage. Ranges are increased so we no longer have to wave big sticks in front of each other - no more ‘wait until you see the whites of their eyes!’ because you can inflict serious harm from further away. You have catapults and trebuchet’s, your bow and arrow is now more accurate, you have crossbows and throwing axes and spears…
And then gunpowder is invented and, although its primary use was for fireworks and peace, someone uses it to aid in the firing of smaller projectiles…This turns simple border disputes into full on war between nations. Now you have guns and cannons, the methods of killing can now be loaded onto wheeled or floating platforms in order to extend your reach. You can now lay siege to a city from all sides, including the water.
Suddenly, nowhere is safe…
Eventually, as in all these disputes, someone wins - and the victor claims the spoils, the knowledge, the science and all of the weapons recovered from the enemy. Improvements are made and suddenly the victor is even more powerful and dangerous. Now, they don’t have to wage war with their closest neighbour - they can bypass their neighbour and wage war with someone really remote, potentially hundreds of miles away…
But still, the human race is not satisfied with this victory and this knowledge. We task our cleverest minds to understand science; chemistry, biology and physics join forces so that we can invent bigger and more destructive ways to hurt each other and from farther away than ever - now we don’t even have to go to the other country to wage war, we invent pathogens to infect and kill, transported in innocuous packages, we sit in our comfy chairs and remotely control our war-machines with computer joysticks to destroy people and land we’ve not even seen up close never mind set foot in, all in the name of some random ideology that seemed a good idea at the time…
I read a story once, written in the fifties and therefore before all of the current advances in rocket technology, that prevented gunpowder’s invention from ever occurring. Suddenly, guns and anything that utilised gunpowder were rendered inoperative all around the world. Initially, peace reigned…until they got the information through that people were out sharpening sticks,making clubs and spears and gathering rocks….
Humans being humans again…
But have we always been this way? Did we suppress our ‘natural urges’ to expand when all of the territory around us had been claimed? Or did we just put it on the back burner, waiting for that spark that set us all off again?
Why did we not evolve past this? Is this need buried so deep in our genes that we’ll never escape it, ready to breed a whole new army of fighters for the truth? (Whether we all agree on that version of the truth is another matter of course, and irrelevant to those who want to push their version of it…)
You see, I think the Human race is full of people for whom envy is the root of all of their problems. Why has my neighbour got a better house than me? Why is their garden neater? Why is their car better? Why do they get more money in their job?
And rather than looking for ways to improve their lives, they live in a permanent belief that blaming someone else will solve all of their problems. It’s very easy to point fingers and shout and swagger around bemoaning the fact of how it was so much better in the past and let’s get back to the good old days and the good old ways…
Let’s get back to when we were in charge and everybody feared us!!!
What they steadfastly fail to realise is that we’re no longer small, isolated communities, living off the land in our small family groups and with our livestock close to hand, self-sufficient in our ways.
We are a planet of around 7 Billion souls, slowly increasing every day, and a good percentage of those are waving proverbial sticks at each other, shouting threats and insults, in a vain attempt to show their power and strength, solid in their warped knowledge that power equals might, might equals fear, and fear equals prosperity for their own people over their fellow man…
Sorry, everyone…but peace brings prosperity, peace brings stability, peace brings wealth, peace brings happiness as we all simply get on with each other…
And until we get rid of the warmongers and rabid politicians who run our countries, until we can sit around a table, sharing tea or coffee or water, with a few snacks to share, discussing how to get along with each other - we’ll never progress as a species.
The advances we made as a species when we left Africa, when curiosity overtook our lives and we wandered the land, looking for something better, seem to have ground to a halt. We now stretch our brains to utilise science in both good and bad ways -
we point telescopes at the night sky to view the cosmos and understand our position within it, then at the same time zoom down to earth to keep an eye on not only enemies but our own people
we are now at the subatomic level in our research and understanding of the human genome, but others see this advancement and want to use it to find less obvious, stealthier ways to harm our fellow man or woman
we research medicines with as much funding as others who research poisons
Because the threat of a weapon in whatever new form is as much a deterrent as an actual event…
And while so-called security forces manipulate events not only in their own country but foreign ones in order to de-stabilise a government or a country, all in the name of global peace…
And all the time, the rich get richer, the poor poorer, prices rise and the struggle to survive continues…
Is there a way out of it?
I’m not sure, but I wonder at the longevity of the human species if we don’t do something to alleviate the problems we face right now…and quickly.
We take and take and take, we build factory ships to remove more fish from our oceans than can ever be replenished naturally, we dig bigger and deeper holes to remove resources that our planet has built up over millennia to enable us to make more technology that works out better ways to find and remove more than ever before, we fell forests for wood, we strip the breathing heart of our planet so that we can plant and harvest crops and earn the farmers more money…and when people point out what is being done to the planet, that if we don’t start to make those changes before we hit that tipping point from which we will never recover, they get laughed at and asked how else will people survive in this modern world? Give up my luxuries?
Are you mad?…
Perhaps…
On the upside, we are starting to make changes, albeit small ones. We learn to manage our forests, we put quotas on fishing fleets, we pass laws to control expansion, we limit gases and other harmful output to protect our atmosphere - but are they all too late? Are they just ripples in a pond of infinite size? Absorbed and smoothed out before they make any kind of impact?
I think it’s time we all need to take a step back and think about what we’re doing - not only to the planet, but each other, on a daily basis.
The time for expansion is past, the time for peace and co-operation should be the next stage of our evolution…
Before it’s too late, before desperation hits that fateful level, someone gets backed into a corner and decides that the only solution to all of their problems is to press that button…
Welcome to the Human Race….