in a world greater than i

*note: this post will be opinionated, feel free to disagree in the comments!

 

“In a world greater than I”. This was a phrase I had written during one of my poetical musings. At the time, it was written to convey that I individually, together with all my problems and troubles, was, in the end, an insignificant speck in the vast expanse of the universe. (Happy thoughts!) As I continue to learn more about the environmental crisis and reflect on the factors that influence an individual to act for or against the environment, I’ve come to adopt this this “in a world greater than I” mentality in regards to the environment as well.

 

Adapted from the ‘go brrr’ meme

 

We, humans, are quite amazing creatures. We’ve essentially enslaved the living world, then exploited it as much as possible for our wants and needs. But as much as we love to hype ourselves and our achievements up, the few millennia that make up human history is trifling in the face of the billions of years that Earth has been around.

Despite that, we have somehow gotten it into our heads that the actions that we make for nature is a ‘sacrifice’ on our part—as if we are somehow dominant over nature and nature is indebted to us for trying to save it. And this in criticism of myself too.

Save the Earth? No, we are saving ourselves. We are the temporal existences on this vast planet. Yes, the impact we have made on this Earth can be felt in great waves, some in more embarrassing and collaterally destructive ways than others, but we should stop fooling ourselves to think that we are above a planet. Earth will continue to persist, with or without us.

 

“… however grave our mistakes, nature will
ultimately overcome them. The living world will endure.
We humans cannot presume the same.”
– David Attenborough, A Life On Our Planet

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