On the final day of 2008, I revealed my New Year's resolution here on Dada's. In it, I concluded by saying, "I promise to be less optimistic. I promise to be more careful about what and whom I do(n't) love...and certainly, I will be less cheerful."
Well sometimes, like in a previous blog below The Remake You'll Never See....," I seem to stray from my gloominess. This may leave readers thinking I've softened, that I'm becoming almost happy despite all that's going on around us. Hence, it's good to take a moment to remind myself of the unshakable aura of doom and despair that surrounds humanity; to remember the underlying premise of Dada's Dally, that we are living in the middle of a very, very large mass extinction and provide no rational model to justify our exemption from all others that may be endangered or vanishing around us.
That's why I'd like to share today a portion of Elaine Meinel Supkis' blog entitled, Viral Flu: Earth's Oldest Trojan Horse-Invaders. It dovetails nicely with Dada's basic premise. But as its author suggests below, in talking about the Black Plague and, despite the gloominess of all that was unfolding, it was no reason to totally abandon the Ship of Silliness. (NOTE: Dada does not think the swine flu is all it's cracked up to be.) There is still time for merriment and celebrations.
So if I sometimes seem to stray, to smile, or appear happy, don't mistake it for a weakening resolve that all about us is collapsing. Man is just a very large virus.
Viral Flu: Earth's Oldest Trojan Horse-Invaders
Running around in panic because of a viral surge is useless. You can’t easily hide from it. Sometimes, we must endure unpleasant visits from our fellow living creatures. Viruses are living things, by the way, just as we are. So is bacterium, plankton, etc. All single celled creatures once ruled this planet and used all of its resources for multiplying and dividing. We cannot banish them.
Looking at humans on a more cosmic scale, we are identical to them: we are in the middle of the final stages of our own, epic ‘hockey stick’ growth cycle and are heading towards a crash. As do all living things that end up maxing out natural resources. All of us fear death and understandably so. But Death will visit, invariably. Even the greatest religious figures who found religions die.
Even the very gods die, when the Zodiac stars shift over the eons. We cannot live life in fear of death. During the Black Plague, a truly noxious death visitation, people decided to stop wailing and crouching in fear and began to do the opposite. And the urge to celebrate, have fun and live even as death swings its scythe is one of the more admirable parts of our psychology. Animals, when they get sick, just lie down and passively die [except when they have rabies, another viral innovation that has a mere single celled entity driving its victim to work on behalf of the virus!]. Humans defy Death.
5 comments:
Well this is an interesting psychological twist to the fear.... how about I dance to the store & buy some alcohol based hand washing gel, is that somewhat in the same spirit you are referring to?
* In my defense, I work in a building with 300 people. they have opportunities to travel all over the world & most recently, to Mexico.
aah, now you're talking my favorite subject ... The Black Death, when plague walked the land but the people had no concept of germs and therefore considered cleanliness to be next to Satan (for only the heathen Arabs and Orientals liked to bathe).
my favorite advice from the 1300's: "leave early, go far, stay long"! good advice for any age of man for it is not the animals or viruses that are our worst enemies, it is humans.
or you could follow the partiers and end up like The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe:
" ... and now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all ..."
Having lived through a few (either in this life or other distant memories), I take my pandemics seriously! Still, I agree that this "swine flu is not all it's cracked up to be" ... unfortunately!
Fran: It's nice to personally know someone who has a toe in the tepid waters of humanity -- if for nothing more than a barometer by which to measure dangers all around us (health-wise as well as economic)!
So we'll continue keeping an eye on you and hoping for the best.
D.K. Welcome back! Hope you had a good mini-vacation and that it wasn't too hot while on it.
Thanks for the delightful EAP quote. I think, however, you may have made a typo when you said,
"I take my pandemics seriously! Still, I agree that this "swine flu is not all it's cracked up to be" ... unfortunately!"
If not, then "double welcome back" - such morbidity is so refreshing!
yes it's a real conundrum ... halfway loving humanity (or maybe loving them to death), and halfway realizing Arthur C. Clarke's may have been right. ACC said the optimum human population would be 10%. A 10% reduction in the current population, he was asked? No, 10% OF the current population, he answered!
Well, I'm inclined to agree with ACC. Certainly, it'd probably make a lot more of Nature happy like wolves, condors and whales, etc.
I don't know, however... how would the viruses and bacteria like it? Might they miss us and place those humans remaining on an endangered species list and start protecting us?
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