Our lands are vast enough to house our supposedly overpopulated collective (a theory which does not consider the possibility of a change in human action), these same lands already produce more than enough food for everyone on Earth. Humanity’s collective ingenuity has found alternative energies that could power our cities and farms with little to no environmental harm. Between the advanced agricultural systems farmers have used to consistently reduce global hunger over time, and the fields which show up for us every year- Humanity has both received and created all the means necessary for a better future.
From the star dust that comprises us to the Sun and Moon, which shape the cycles of Earth, inexplicable events have landed us on the unsecured roller coaster that is human life. This coaster rides fast, and there may be scary drops in which we cannot all hold on, but we must not forget that just a ticket to the ride is a true miracle.
An even greater miracle can be found in the emergence of consciousness. This puzzle that scientists, spiritualists, and philosophers alike have spent millennia solving is still far from being understood. A miracle, however it may have come to be, has gifted every one of us with an ability that an unknowably small fraction of the Universe will ever experience. We are the fruit of miracle after miracle. From the Moon guiding the tides to the organisms that first rode them to land, from the Sun’s precisely distanced heat to the human ingenuity that harnessed it for clean power- the world as we know it was built on miracles.
Yet so much of what we have built is far from miraculous. Our wars are waged with increasingly sophisticated machines of murder, with orders barked by thoroughly unsophisticated leaders. We have the means to feed the hungry, but a presidential candidate campaigning on ending hunger would not make it past the primaries, even in the wealthiest economy in human history. That economy and its excess food are instead spent fueling 280,000 annual deaths attributed to obesity. We have discovered and refined renewable energies, but their use is fought tooth and nail by industries of old. Wherever there is a will for change, there seems to be a greater will lobbying against it.
How could this be democratic? Wherever you turn, good people are oppressed, and good change is fought. The power of the few has silenced the voices of the many. When one looks out onto the problems of the world, they will find that humans are often the root. Our ailments are the result of our own actions, but human ingenuity and Earth’s providence have provided us with all we need to right our wrongs. Today’s inaction will be tomorrow’s suffering.
It is in our hands, and to some, that may be terrifying.
I wouldn’t want it any other way.
