In my last posting I mentioned that Nature's survival strategy is to create conditions conducive to life. The contrast between that strategy and ours (human nature's) is best observed in the separate outcome of each and the startling evidence of the end results.
Nature's (meaning life on earth's) survival strategy, I dare say, is a "sustainable continuity" of a multi-layered life process that has been integrated for over billions of years to produce uniformly at each of its exponential expressions (or layers) conditions that are adaptable and conducive to life.
Ours is the strategy of a species that has yet to develop sufficiently to be a part of that greater strategy (although we are at the tipping point to do so.) However, our childhood as a species has only taken us as far as to create conditions where life is merely a proprietary resource conducive to riches and power. What a point of contrast this is!
If I was an extraterrestrial being observing the species, the above conclusion would be the overall observation that I would record from my visit to Earth, particularly after experiencing and witnessing, first hand, human activity (and reading the news) for just a few days. I would also note that a brief survey of the rest of the earth environment suggests sufficient evidence to support the observation.
Dear friends, I intend no disrespect, but this is Planet Earth 1.0. It is a culture that we must face up to and transition away from towards Planet Earth 2.0 where, as I said in my last blog entry, we may be able to rejoin Nature's strategy. And, we can do so at an entry level that has never occurred before in the history of Life on Earth.
I have chosen the work of art titled "Reconciliation IV" for our illustration today because I think it illuminates the scope of my remarks regarding this very crucial but special moment in our history as we come to terms with the end of our childhood as a species and prepare to enter the transitional period towards our adulthood.
My art has always been about imagining what that reconciliation between art (as human expression) and life (as the process we are examining) represents for the future of our species and that of the rest of life on our planet.
As you may have realized, Planet Earth 2.0 is a creation no different than was the creation of Planet Earth 1.0 right after our discovery of fire and of the stone spear-point. Like then, Planet Earth 2.0 is a new cultural theatre, a new stage at the beginning of a new story where humanity departs to develop a different plot to celebrate its new place in the history of life.
Similarly, just as Planet Earth 1.0 began with the knowledge of fire and a new hunting tool, Planet Earth 2.0 begins fully aware of their (fire's and spear's) evolution, ultimate capability and their combined effect on life and the world over the last 100 millennia or so. Those thousands of years of labor constitute the landscape of realities that have attended the world that we have created beginning with those inventions and skills.
I wish to merge closer and closer in our conversation to the ideological landscape of Planet Earth 2.0 which is by far more interesting than rehashing too much on the detail about the innocence of our upbringing as a species.
Planet Earth 1.0 has come as far as it can. Perhaps, it has come even further than it should have considering the amount of work that is going to take to straighten out its deeds.
Fortunately there is enough, I think, science and technology (on the human side), planetary natural remnants (on Nature's side) and time to build a new world. Please notice that I say a "new world" because the illusion that we can restore the current world that our children are inheriting is untenable.
There may be enough time, know-how and material to build a new one. But, the world of the 19th or 20th centuries is all gone, never to return. To think otherwise is permissible, but just as foolish as rearranging the deck chairs on the RMS Titanic as it sinks.
The aesthetic reconciliation of art and life, as predicated by Data A art, was the first indication that we (humanity) can indeed rejoin the process of life on earth, albeit, at a different level and under different cultural circumstances.
The resulting conditions makes it possible to match Nature's own disposition. Thereby, the birth of a partnership between us and the world which has never existed before is enabled. This new partnership constitutes the only way that our survival requirements can be sustained alongside those of the other life-forms that are needed to support us as an ecology in a unified global environment.
So what will be our new role in that survival strategy?
Our new role is so exciting that, if you had any misgivings about leaving Planet Earth 1.0 behind, the incentives on Planet Earth 2.0 are such that you will soon perish the thought.
Consider for starters, the unbelievable history of the industrial age--all of its ups and downs, its poverty and riches that focused the incredible power of human ingenuity to tackle the conquest and absolute destruction of an entire planet (as we are still engaged in doing.)
Imagine, then, based just upon the current workload stemming from the global issues that need immediate attention, a similar but reversed focus applied to the construction of a new world and the sea of opportunity that there will be for totally new jobs and career opportunities and the new sense of wealth and well-being that surfaces with the spirit of the construction of a new world.
It is wise to consider that when we work in partnership with Nature we are secure of a partner that delivers the seasons on time each year. Nature is a partner whose sole aim is to maintain a "sustainable continuity" that, incidentally, already aptly provides food, shelter and a reproductive future to a million trillion creatures (just in the insect family, for instance) Nature does it on time, on budget and without waste.
Now, with a partner and a role model like that we just can't go wrong, people. Why would we want to remain so steadfast to an outdated culture that has already delivered all of its promise?
What makes our new role in Planet Earth 2.0 so outstanding is the fact that we have an opportunity that no other creature in the history of life on Earth has had. Namely, that we will be the first creature that has ever lived to actually be able to prevent its own extinction by partnering with nature and using our technological genius to create a new world that is suitable to us and what remains viable for long term-life on Planet Earth.
Let me close for now with a reference to the work "Reconciliation IV" that illustrates my remarks.
I believe that the best way to come to terms with the complexity of this moment in history is to simplify it against a greater complexity. This way, our narrow view of the world is rendered to its simplest expression or to the reality of just what it is.
"Reconciliation IV" is about a human being who has evolved to realize its place in the universe and the implications of its presence in the scheme of things. It is the simplified story of the fish that crawled out of the water, grew up to embrace the harmony of its home (earth), its place in the solar system and its role in the continuance of life as we know it in this blue marble on the outskirts of one spiral arm in the Milky Way.
In my next posting, we will begin to get into the tool box that is making these dreams a reality.
For your own printable image of "Reconciliation IV" click here or on the image above
Tiité
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