Well, this is absolutely a first for me. I have done hundreds of these things and never once has a picture written a story. I was sitting down, away from the chaos of the brewery and thinking about some really hard shit and how I could write about it. In the midst of the mental gymnastics, I stopped all engines and just looked at what I was looking at. it is a story, waiting to be told and it is not going to be a good one. The picture is the prologue.
I’m pretty sure I could never pass for an optimist, although it would depend on how small you wanted to go. You can’t get any smaller than your own life, which is really all you know. Honestly, I’ve been no angel, my path strewn with stupid. Now, when you go the completely opposite side, the view even curves around corners, defying science. It’s like we need to be Earthnauts, experiencing so many things for the first time. So, we live in two worlds, like it or not, big and small.
Imagine if you could view this world for the first time? If you came from the future from another planet, you’d want to get the hell out of here as fast as you could. Listen, if you can travel billions of light years and have no jet lag, you got no use for any kind of shit show. Chances are, there were some issues, back where you came from, but nothing like this. If you don’t think we have been getting visited by other planetary, mind pirates, you should commute to another one, because you’re in the wrong place.
You also don’t have to be from another galaxy. You can be someone, who decides to try and make his view as broad as possible, embracing things he has never seen and can’t even do justice in his imagination. Now, imagine being a citizen of any place, wherever humans congregate? You are a member of their community. So, when people talk about issues, primarily climate change and all its derivative focuses, you know all sides, a global perspective, because you have been everywhere. This is about your imagination, after all.
OK, that’s a ridiculous idea, but I am trying to tell a story here. Not only do you know everything, your memory goes back thousands of years and it is impeccable. So, whether you’re an outer space visiter or a fictional super hero, you have an uncluttered, clearly focused view of where we are at, because you see it all.
It’s kind of cool to create fictionalized characters to tell a story. Seeing where we are, at least in my mind, makes me want to think about super heroes coming to save the day. The earth started as a blank canvas, its origins shrouded in mysteries yet to be determined and hopefully never will be. The story of this planet and its fantastic evolution is the greatest story to be told. It is every single one of us and everything that ever has been and ever will be. What an unbelievable history this planet holds!
You know, if you keep polishing a gem, making it more and more beautiful in your imagination, eventually its beauty will disappear, ground to powder. Preservation is continually trumped by progress. It’s like thinking nature is an accident, not some brilliantly orchestrated, one-time-only classic. There are so many places I have been, incredulous moments, painting masterpieces in my mind.
I can imagine the intergalactic interloper wondering why we have been hell bent on destroying our home, oblivious to the consequences of our actions. They learned in their world, they could change the climate, if it needed improvement. There was never disagreement amongst them. I am sorry, it is just really hard to believe that any advanced society, capable of intergalactic travel, is going to behave as stupidly as we do.
I gotta tell you a secret. I am not all that bright and just because I do this writing thing, it doesn’t mean I’m very smart, believe me. In recent years, I have imagined myself a genius, someone capable of seeing and understanding what many people cannot. I didn’t care and I don’t care if I’m some, mind blowing superhero or a being, outlined by a beam of light, visible only to the special ones. It’s the view that matters; then finding the vocabulary to describe it.
I think everyone, who lives here, regardless of circumstance, would agree that the earth is alive. Wherever you look and whatever you look at, someone or something is home. If you burn it, it feels pain. If you dig holes in it, stripping away its skin, it hurts. When you artificially alter its temperature, it gets confused and strikes out in anger.
It’s funny, I am conjuring up these science fiction scenarios, when there are people, who have been here forever, our indigenous, human treasures. God knows, they were incredibly imperfect, flawed human beings. However, all their cultures embraced the earth as a gift to be treated with care. It was about harmony, not dominance, a fools endeavor.
Centuries of science have brought us no closer to recalibrating the natural imbalance we have orchestrated and proliferated. We have made it worse. What is it that is so important, blinding us to the consequences of our actions? There are so few with so much and all they want is more. Why?
I imagine an incredible uprising, from people all over the world. People from Burkina Faso join together with Egyptians, China and Hong Kong come together, Belarus and Belize join the effort. It is a universal alliance, geography disappears, replaced by earth warriors. The power of the few devoured by a magnificent groundswell of humanity. Millions of Earthnauts reclaim the planet and save it from their history.
I am certain that is what it will take to save us and it feels like extremely, well intentioned science fiction. I am sorry.