We are so small, so insignificant, in the whole of existence, and yet so very arrogant. It takes things like this to show us our true place in the world, and yet we find ways to ignore the truth, focusing instead on the individual human condition.
I guess it is my job to remember.
I am speaking of the largest single natural disaster of my lifetime, and perhaps several before me. So far the human life toll is over 80,000 in eleven countries, and rising. The worst is yet to come too- the disease, the potential starvation, the sheer trauma of the happening.
One huge earthquake, causing one gigantic wave, has laid waste to thousands of years of culture, and even more people's lives. We have lived for so many decades with relative quiet across the face of the planet, we have forgotten that SHE is in charge, not us. We cannot stop the hurricanes. We cannot stop the floods, or blizzards, or draughts, and yet our arrogance grows. We abuse the one world we have to call home, and are startled when she strikes back. We think it "an act of god," failing to understand that any living thing will fight for its life, even a planet.
She may not move on our time scale, may not acknowledge the clocks we live by, but she is alive, in every sense. Just like any animal covered by an infestation, she seeks ways to be rid of , or at least control the creatures on her skin.
That's what we are. A group of two legged fleas, growing out of control, using our host up at an alarming rate, and paying no heed to the fact that there is no place to jump off to when we have done her in.
Actually, we won't kill her. She has survived worse than us. What we will manage to do is destroy the niche made for just us that we have bred out of existence -there are just too many of us, and no, we do not have some ridiculous "right" to procreate without discretion. That is beyond stupid.
More later, as things unfold. I am particularly fond of the area of the world affected, and find myself feeling a little too close to the subject to be totally objective.