George Carlin, man vs.world, common sense

Years ago,-- I think in 1996--, George Carlin, whose common sense and straightforwardness people often fail to see because of the jokester persona, posited that airport security was impossible, if not an oxymoron, because too many people have access (technicians, caterers, maintenance personnel, mecanics, etc..--one could also mention that any individual can always be bribed or coerced and a breach of security is therefore always possible).

Likewise, he also stated a bit later (1999? 2000?) that we think too much of ourselves in assuming that we can wreck the planet with our pollution, etc. We are wrecking the planet, there is no doubt, George, but truth be told, you are also right in that when faced with the power of volcanoes, tsunamis, ice age cycles, etc.., we really are ants on the giant mud ball called Earth.

Twenty years after Chernobyl, life returns there (how warped, mutated, damaged, cancer-ridden, etc., all the forms of life are, I do not know). But it is quite possible that we overestimate our power and impact, and that the Earth can self-correct, even from our evil deeds..

Yet, we do have an impact, we use resources faster now than at any rate in this era (I mean over tens of thousands of years), faster and on a grander scale than in the known history of the world. 300 years ago, the United States was in harmony and synergy with the natural production cycle of all forms of life, allowing all resources to replenish while the American representatives of mankind were living off of it, and we have wrecked that very quickly (and it is not over).

So, there is a little bit of this, and a little bit of that; we need to accept flux and reflux, and a state of balance, however unsatisfying to one part or another each swing of the pendulum might be (expect more storms, floods, hurricane, blizzards, epidemics, etc.. as Nature swings back against us now..)
We like stability, one in the hand is always better, we like our certainties and truths -- religions, among other belief systems, are here for that ("you are right, my friend, all others are wrong, come with me/us")--. But we must accept that thigns are always in balance, uncertain, never for sure and written in stone, that the world is in a state of perennial change. We, the US, were on top for the last 50 years or so, and now it changes, as has been the case for every ancestor nation of ours: every European nation has been at one point or another on top of its world ,or even of The World, -- Italy (Rome), Greece, Spain, England, at one point or another was, have been THE top nation in their part of the world or of the world; Egypt, Persia, the mongol Empire, others, too; almost every part of the world has been the top dog at one point or another of our known history. But that was always so before that leading lost its top position and rejoined the ranks of its sister civilizations, cultures, or nations, in the (often cacophonious) concert of nations (and China's turn is coming up (again?).

And so, America's supremacy, airport security, save the world/save the planet, yes, we can, and indeed must, take those as facts, but only as part of a balanced view of the bigger picture. We might be only ants, but smart ants; we might impact the world, but only in part; we might be smart, but not as much as we think; we might save the world, but only in part. And it might save itself, without us (life after humans, part N?)...

That was today's plea for common sense and maturity.