Surviving The Fall, 31

What is this Fall that we have to survive? It is many classes of Fall: environmental, psychological, moral and ethical, spiritual. Are we on the cusp of Apocalypse? When haven't we been? Seventy-two thousand years ago we almost became extinct after a super volcano erupted in Indonesia and the earth drastically cooled for many years. There have been other horrors since and now we live forever on the brink of nuclear annihilation or environmental collapse, or, pick one. Life has always been fragile and uncertain but only now can a majority, or near-majority of the seven billion humans infesting the planet enjoy having First World Problems. As living standards rise in India, China, Brazil, Mexico and elsewhere, and more and more people rise to middle class mediocrity, so do the demands on our earth's resources get ramped up. Everyone wants a car. Everyone wants to eat steak for dinner. And our dear Pachamama, our Mother Earth can take only so much of this. These rising new middle classes in what used to be called the Third World, could be expected to be a little bit more enlightened and altruistic than our grandparents might have been here in the hyper-consumerist West, but that is such a pipe dream. They want stuff. They want comfort. They want status. They want brads. They want to go shopping. The environment? What's that? Four years ago in Mexico City I tried to have this conversation with a cop about a demonstration of well-off locals in Coyoacan who didn't want their parking privileges cut back. When I tried to mention the dangers of climate change from global warming as one justification for having less cars his eyes kind of glazed over and he and another cop looked at me like I was some North American nut-case. We`ve had our crack at wrecking the planet. Now it`s everyone else`s turn. Yesterday I was reading an article in last weekend's Globe and Mail about kindness, how there is such a huge lack of it. Even on the bus, when a gang of young Irish mouth breathers take up the courtesy seats in the front of the bus, I just beg and pray that if someone frail or elderly who really needs to sit right away will meet with unexpected kindness. I don't know what it is about Irish international students that rubs me the wrong way, but I think I prefer Asians and Latinos. They're nicer. And better mannered. Though equally dumb! I suppose that I could show kindness by being a little more welcoming, which is hard to do with entitled rude young idiots, but someone has to be the role model, eh? The writer of the article about kindness alleges that our kindness deficit has a lot to do with the stress and isolation that many of us live under these days and how important it is to find ways of reaching across the divide. Even if they're Irish mouth breathers. We can only do the little that we can, and just hope that it will fan enough life into those dying embers to create a flame and after that, who knows? Hopefully the flame won't be emitting more carbon into the atmosphere! We really need to seek and find our wealth in nonmaterial realities, in our relationships with one another and the environment.