
June 8, 2023 · 0 Comments
By Constance Scrafield
So far, we can count on the fact that our earth is spinning and rotating the sun, so that in whenever is our version of morning, as long as it is during the day, the sun is up.
And that is about it.
Personally, I start my day with the BBC and certainly, this column is littered with references to the Beeb, as we call it. I consider it to be the most accurate and clear reference to deliver the morning news, about all the creatures with whom I share this planet.
Relatively speaking.
Because the only thing we can count on is the veracity and continuity of the cosmos, even the reliability of the BBC might be viewed as shaky. Yet, the cosmos surprises us all the time and that is due to our very limited imagination. Time marches inexorably on yet, our constant interpretation of time and the fact that it can bend and be different from place to place, makes it not so much unreliable or untrustworthy as tricky.
“Time drags.” “Time speeds by.” “The older one gets, the faster time flies…”
The strange and completely turn- the- world- on -its- head 1960s decade where the tight trousers and long skirts were out, unbelievable angst was dumped; up-tight was out and long hair was in, flower power was in; the grassroots music of the “folk” and the new open sounds of the fun and young bands were in.
The total pushback to the hurt of the first half of the Twentieth Century’s lust for war, the constant huge dangers opposing world powers threatened, were resisted on the part of young people. The social un-leashing of the 1960s happened because Establishment had failed, and tremendous music festivals took place amid “free love” and weed and old philosophies reborn. Wonderful rebellious poetry came from the singers who only needed their guitars to tell it – to tell the war-mongering leaders of our own societies that they were wrong, to shine the light on the corrupt and to call to account the money spinners who wanted it all for themselves.
Minds were still free to think, and people liked being together unimpeded by mechanical distraction. People loved their mental freedom and their mutual connection on a human basis.
It was a very good time, but it did not stop the corruption, the wars, the money-spinning, the greed. No one thought then nor guessed at the mind control in their very near future, the stuff of dire science fiction was to be their own reality sooner than they would ever have believed. More than that, they would have denied absolutely that they could be persuaded to embrace such a future.
This century has been particularly hard on scientists. Remember here in freedom-of-speech Canada, when Stephen Harper, then Prime Minister, shut down scientists, especially in the North, stopped them from issuing their warnings about the development that was endangering the whole planet, stopped them from warning Canadians about the kind of harm industry was doing with the consent and backing of our government? Such restrictions were not confined to Canada. Across the world, scientists were being muzzled and discredited; national leaders and politicians were determined to mollify the warnings and the authoritative voices of doom.
Now that we have become numb to them, scientists are given the freedom to speak, yes, allowed to breach the headlines and make the news. Heads of government attend International conferences, and speakers, from teenagers to grey beards, bring their pleas for sanity in the turmoil industry, garbage, our eating habits, and our wasteful, wasteful ways have inflicted.
However, scientists are not invited to speak at those conferences. Leaders from the UN and environmental organizations speak but they are diplomates, urging “something be done,” “promises be made.” And promises are made, but we all know what that is worth.
As time was an anomaly while the universe was a void, just imagine: endless nothing, it still had no meaning once there was substance of stars, planets, meteorites, etc. Do we really believe that it took the advent of humans to acknowledge and measure time? Another of our conceits?
It is the turning of Mother Earth, the flow of nature’s evolutions that measure time, define it and give time meaning. The power of this planet can survive us. Imagine we all jumped into Musk’s rockets and went to Mars, there to face challenges to completely redefine us as a species if we existed long enough to establish colonies there.
If we simply gave this planet back to nature, however beaten up and diminished, life here would come back. Plants would grow all over the cities and dismantle them. Some form of creature would emerge. The intrinsic element of time would continue.
In the very long run, humans are nothing, for there is no ending of time, only our individual share of it. Whatever damage we leave behind, they will be merely marks, merely scars not indefinite harm. All our wars, our greed, our hurtful indifference, when it is all over and we either eradicate ourselves, we leave or the combination, this planet with all its wonderful energy and wisdom will come back.
Or we could stay and live and begin healing.