What Do I Believe?

What do I believe? I believe we are just one of the thousands of species on this plant. 

Yeah, sure, we are the dominant species, sure we are. We put the A in Apex predator, you bet we did.

We're not the smartest, and yet we are the smartest at the same time. But are we? You know, the smartest? We have poisoned the planet we rely on, to live, we don't, actually, have anywhere else to live, so that is probably going to spell the end of us. Where every other species has lived in a way to preserve the planet they rely on.

And even when we see first hand evidence of climate change, in wild weather all over the world, we seem to wonder collectively, for the most part, Where is this weather coming from? It is mind boggling.

So, which is the smartest species? Really?

All species are born to reproduce, that is the point of us. And yet so many of us waste our lives trying to find greater meaning, when there is none. No greater meaning. 

The endless search for meaning is not a substitute for living better.

We live. We reproduce. We die. That is it. That's all there is. Any thing else is at most hopeful, at worst delusional. That is the simple truth. So many of us are delusional.

Oh, but what about those of us who don't reproduce? Seriously? (That is just the mean, pernickety types coming out, probably said with some kind of agenda in mind) It is generally true of all species, as a whole. That is the purpose of us as a group, the collective. Stop trying to be clever, because by that statement you just proved that you are not.

When we die, it's dust. For all of us. There is nothing else. Nothing.

I don't have any problem with this belief, it is just logical to me. I don't need to have any belief there is anything after this.

Do you think the focus on self detracts from the focus on the collective and therefore the care of the planet?

David tries to convince me otherwise, because he believes the opposite to me. He always says, "I know you believe there is something after this life, I know you do deep down."

"No, I don't," I reply.

We have this bet, for want of a better name, that if he dies before me, at some point after his death, someone, a person, has to see me across a big square, like Fed Square, or some such place, and somehow I have to notice them, and that person has to walk across the square directly towards me, walking right up to me and they have to say, "You are wrong." And then walk off.

That is the only way I will change my belief.

We both laugh at that idea, quite possible for different reasons.