Highway Ephiphanies

I was up the coast for a few days for Easter, then did a late Sunday night run home to beat the traffic. Cruise set to 120, seat back, rain softly hitting the windscreen, thundering across the  dark open plain stretching before me, I did some thinking.

Nothing lasts forever. All we have are the moments.

So many, myself included, spend their lives railing against the hand we’re dealt when things don’t go our way. When we’re single we pine for love, closeness and certainty. When in a long relationship we crave time alone, adventure and thrills. As one of the majority who’s been from one extreme to the other, and has now run the full circle, I kind of wonder what to chase next.

The usual of course is to recommence the circle. However I question that. I used to say that circle was life. That was it. You crush, you chase, you get a little thrill, then usually get hurt. Sometimes it goes further and there’s love. Then it ends and you’re back to the beginning. Whenever a friend sobbed to me in the aftermath of it all falling apart, I would rehash the same pep talk. It’s all part of the tapestry baby. This is your life, that’s all there is. Take it all in.

And while to an extent, I think I was kind of right, last night, thundering down a lonely Bruce Highway, I suddenly reached a totally new way of looking at it all.

It’s been coming awhile. But it didn’t hit home till I really thought about it. Nothing lasts forever. All we have are the moments. One needs to cease the concern over the future because it doesn’t exist. Neither does the past. The present exists, we’re in it now. Cherish it. See, now that moment’s gone. Lost forever and it’s all you had at that moment. But you did have it there. Did you appreciate it?

It’s easy to fall into the trap of defining oneself by the have-not’s. What about what you have? It’s cliched, but I never properly thought about it till recently.

“Ride the wave.” I said to my friend that the other night. I only realised the significance after it was said. Life is about the now, and to a large extent going with the flow. Not so much accepting shitty situations, but picking which fights to fight, and by riding the wave during the easier, better times, by not continually dwelling on the have-nots, saving one’s energy for the fights that really count.

And that brings me to the next epiphany. It seems to me that we need to ride the wave not just as individuals, but also as a collective.

To me, nature is perfection. Chaos and the progression of time have produced a system so incredibly powerful, uncompromising and complex, I believe our fundamental error as a species and as members of this system has been to think we can successfully adapt it to suit ourselves, rather than adapt to it, as has each and every other one of the trillions of species we share the planet with. Concrete. Walls. Dams. Each stupid little barrier is nothing compared to the force of perfection which is nature. Her energy and patience is infinite and she will slowly but surely crush each and every arrogant, pitiful, bullshit attempt isolating ourselves from it. Attempting to convince ourselves we’re special and somehow different from all the other animals is the grossest waste of energy.

This realisation will be key to our ultimate survival as a species. That nature can never be imitated. Man seems to think he will be best off in an artificial, built environment. But that’s not the case. We’re still part of nature, as much as we try and convince ourselves otherwise through our man made shit.

“Humanity’s first notions of power came from primitive encounters with nature – the flash of lightning in the sky, a sudden flood, the speed and ferocity of a wild animal. These forces required no thinking or planning – they awed us by their sudden appearance, their gracefulness and their power over life and death. And this remains the power we have always wanted to imitate.”
- Robert Greene

We never will come close to imitating it. Better then that we learn to live in harmony with the system which sustains us, instead of cutting it, burning it, and generally pissing it off.

The global warming thing scares me, not so much because of the extent of the challenges we face, but the extent to which, as a collective, we seem to have already given in. Everyone pays lip service, but get people on their own after a few drinks and they confess they feel it’s all futile. We’re fucked. We’re on a burning express train to the apocalypse. Exponential population growth, catastrophic global warming and ultimately the nuclear war it will spark might wipe us out. Everyone’s already accepted it. Wtf mate?

The cynic in me says the third world’s already stuffed because they won’t stop friggin’ breeding. Educating small groups of the destitute on safe sex and giving them condoms just seems so laughably insignificant when you consider the billions of people inhabiting these countries, and the fact that due to their incredibly tough lives, they have no real context which which to understand how their snap decisions have flow on effects to their entire lives and the lives of others. There’s got to be some other way to help them.

Anyway me being the idealistic sceptic I am, I believe doom is quite avoidable. Scientists tell us exactly what we need to do to avoid this. Why aren’t we doing it? We as westerners have the power and the knowledge to fix everything. What a crime if we failed to make use of these things and let it all fall apart.

I love that even at this eleventh hour, Tories still get flustered over practical suggestions like carbon taxing, shrieking that it will “increase the cost of energy”.

Um. Yes, it will. That’s the purpose guys.

Peter Garrett will also stop you mowing your lawn.

Anyway back to the man vs nature thing, you know what I admire most about nature, and animals in particular? They don’t give in like humans do. You don’t see animals deciding it’s all too hard and having a cry. They get on with existing. If faced with an obstacle they either overcome it, or die trying.

Humanity better not wuss out of the challenges we face as a race. I’m ready to do my bit. I’ll pay more for my energy, I’ll stop doing burnouts. I’m prepared to give up whatever material shit I have to to ensure the planet stays a nice place for me to exist. Because at the end of the day, it’s the simple things which make me happy. Doesn’t matter how shit artificial stuff like work gets. If we can swim in the clean ocean, walk through a forest and suck in clean air, everything’s okay. That’s all I really want. Sleep now.