4.02.2008

Ordinary Miracles, Playing God, & the New Jesuses

Some years ago I was having one of those annoyingly frustrating conversations with someone about cultural evolution. The other's pessimistic argument was of the we're-evil-&-doomed-to-hell-in-a-handbasket variety.

I think I started it with commentary about my belief that Jesus & Buddha were probably the result of more advanced child-rearing, resulting in greater levels of empathy, & a clearer ability to see the 'true nature of reality' about them, rather than the prevalent hallucinatory projectiveness typical of those coming from the severely abusive childhoods 'normal' to those times. (Please see http://www.psychohistory.com/ for additional information about these theories about childhood & cultural evolution.)

The response of the other was to say, 'So where are all the Jesuses now? Why aren't there thousands of Jesuses running around performing miracles?' At that moment I was stumped. I can be very slow, & frequently think of the best rejoinders much later.

Some months pass & it came to me: we are surrounded by ordinary miracles, so ubiquitous that we don't even notice their specialness. Indeed, we expect miracles, & denigrate them for not being perfect. The examples that specifically came to my mind were the ordinary (& daily) miracles of modern medicine, particularly the surgeon's ability to 'kill' their patients in pursuit of healing.

Any time a patient undergoes major surgery they are, in effect, 'killed' on the operating table. Wounds so grievous that they would surely die if it were not for the miracles of modern medicine. & then they are brought back to life. Resurrected. Mostly better than they'd been before.

Ordinary miracles so often unappreciated are all around us, if we allow ourselves the optimism to see them.

Death, Jealousy, & the Future

It is completely normal, even expected, for any given mortal to be jealous of those who come after given the reality that things are getting better all the time. Just as it's an ordinary part of human experience for parents to be jealous of the better lives they've worked so hard to give their children. Hard, but true.

I've recognized for some time that a fundamental truth of life is that we get to have sex until we die, & then the future happens. (All too often the sex was the best part.) & I recognize my own jealousy at all the good stuff that will happen after I die. I was hoping for a lunar colony in my lifetime; at 43 this is not looking like it's gonna be.

So. The point of this is that this systemic jealousy, however unconscious, can result in a cynicism about the future which is unjustified by the evidence. In combination with the saturation of depressive suicidal ideation found in the extremist apocalypsism so prevalent in all manner of folk, optimism can feel like an uphill slog in high gravity. But if we can get past our excessive & unfounded sadness & pessimism, the future's so bright I gotta wear shades.

Finite Mineral Fuels

I'd like to offer some reframing on the issues of global energy production. This blog will simply define & offer some small discussion of the concept of 'finite mineral fuels'.

I tend to think it's more useful to think of petroleum, coal, uranium, & even natural gas as finite mineral fuels. (While realizing that natural gas is not technically a mineral.)

These finite mineral fuels are just that -- finite. Limited. Non-renewable. Once dug out of the ground & burned, they are gone. & those that are biogenically sourced (coal, petroleum, & natural gas) are never to be replaced in our lifetimes.

But even uranium is a finite mineral fuel. While we can, theoretically, continue to mine uranium from other parts of our solar system, we are many decades from that being a practical solution to our appetite for energy.

Many people (& more every day) are familiarizing themselves with the concept of peak oil, the idea that petroleum products are a finite resource with a rather predictable pattern of extraction. We might want to start thinking of 'peak natural gas', 'peak uranium', yes, even 'peak coal'. Or we might want to think of them all as simply finite mineral fuels.