we aren't rats, what are we?

There has been talk of 6th great extinction.  This one is not being caused by meteor strikes, or volcanic ash or an Ice Age.  It is instead, just like everything we buy regularly--manmade.

Estimates are that there are fewer than 3200 tigers left in the wild.  Tigers are dangerous predators and make great coats.

There are about 100,000 gorillas but only 600 of those are the mountain gorillas (like in the movie).  Gorillas are dangerous animals and make great knickknacks.

Giraffes number the same.  Its not like they are good for anything, they just stand around and eat out of trees.

The sperm whale population is thought to number in the hundreds of thousands, but when your backyard is all the seas and oceans of the world, that seems a rather low number.  It is also an estimate due to the difficulties of tracking something with such a large area to wander.  They were hunted for a substance used in perfume and cosmetics.  While legal hunting is no longer a threat, ocean noise, pollution, and fishing equipment accidents are still making their lives dangerous.  They are no longer considered endangered, but are still a vulnerable population. ( Not that it affects most of us humans very much)

Ten years ago, there were about 3500 rhinoceros, but right now, there are only 3 white rhinos, 2 female and 1 male, and the black rhinos are mostly under armed guard due to idiots that prefer rhino horn to viagra.

Of the 44,838 species assessed worldwide using the IUCN Red List criteria, 905 are extinct and 16,928 are listed as threatened to be extinct. Millions of species still need to be assessed to know their status. As a result, the number of extinct and threatened species is definitely much higher than the current estimate. A species of plant or animal is classified Extinct when scientists have concluded the last individual has died. Usually exhaustive surveys in known and/or expected habitat, at appropriate times throughout its historic range failed to record an individual, and the species is listed as extinct.

Not all the extinctions are directly related to human hunting prowess, the passenger pigeon and the near extinction of the American Bison were hunting and food related.  The African elephant population is about 10 millions but is in constant danger due to people wanting to buy ivory.  But a lot of extinctions occur because humans want to move into some other species living space.  We destroyed their habitat.

On the flip side of that, the earth is now home to over 7 billion people.   There are probably over 7 billion rats and 7 billion cockroaches, also.  Truly, we humans are the only large creature that is so numerous.  And while we like other humans better than rats and cockroaches, there are some things about us that are worse than either rats of cockroaches.

Rats don't kill other lifeforms to make themselves look pretty or decorate their lairs.
They carry disease, but so do we.
They don't leave the environment cleaner than they found it, but also don't create trash that kills other animals when they are accidentally trapped in it or eat it.
They don't spray deadly chemicals all over to stop other creatures from sharing what they don't want.
They don't destroy food so other animals can't use it.
They don't kill trees.
They don't blow each other up.

So who cares if there are no tigers or elephants or whales or whatever creature disappears forever so we can use more land, have more erections, eat more delicacies and wear more hides?  What does that matter.  What does that do to humans?

Who knows?  

The Purposeful Life

Why do we do so many crazy, ridiculous, meaningless things in our lives.

We work really hard, or try to find a job really hard, or give up and find an illegal job and work really hard or we find a crappy job and try really hard not to work really hard because maybe then, we still have won.

When we meet someone; we get their name and what they do for a living.

We judge each other and ourselves by the hierarchy of the jobs: that is a real thing, but not a real labeled thing.  We all know that the President is at the top and that the President of the Nation is only under the President of the world and the President of the universe. (President can be replaced by any number of hierarchical names like king, emperor, man-made-god, whatever)  and travels downward to the lowest level, which is either beggar man or thief, depending on whether or not you recognize the legitimacy of the organized criminal, in which case the Godfather is similar to President, but not usually at a national level.

I said usually.

Presidents go all the way down to Mom and Pop businesses where one is the president and the other is everything else.  It's still an hierarchy.

Why do jobs and titles and hierarchies mean so much to us humans?  Is it real? Is it just a man-made construct for a group that finds competition necessary to knowing if we are successful?

Is it just a way of avoiding why we are on the planet?

WHY ARE WE HERE?

Why do we struggle?

Why are we only happy when we feel we are valuable, important, purposeful? 

Why do we search so hard for our purpose, for a reason to be?

Why do we think that our life has to be compared to anyone else's life. Is that even possible?  What is a struggle to one person is a given success to another.  

How do we simplify, learn to live as a part of the life on earth and also find our purpose.

We keep hearing about mindfulness.  Being fully in the moment.  Keeping your mind where you are, doing what you are doing, not judging the experience, just feeling it, living it, being it.  It is very similar to what artists describe when they are working on their creation.  Its like the athlete's "Zone". 

We can live there.  Be one with the carrot we are peeling, vacuuming in the "Zone". 

So what about empathy?  If you are mindful, is it possible?  Is it needed?  If you are being without judging, do you need to try to put yourself in the other person's place? 

I don't know if anyone can live mindfully all the time.  But self-awareness is a good start.  Aim for the best you, the noncompetitive best you, the you that is doing everything you do mindfully, but knows when you are not there.  Know yourself: be aware of your own buttons,  your own character flaws, your quirky connections to certain things and aversions to other things that seem to be fine with your friends.

Maybe your purpose is to know yourself--the you that everyone else sees, the you that you see in the mirror, the you that you try hard to pretend does not and has never existed--all of you.

Or maybe being is the only real purpose anyone needs.

Whatever, live with purpose.  You are part of the universe and why-ever you are here, its important.

Is the power of the vote just a lie?

So far, I have watched one state use coin tosses to determine the winner of a vote, and have seen something called a "superdelegate" used to make the loser of the vote have more representation than the winner.
We have voting districts that don't represent the shape of anything except the areas of a place that are most likely to vote for the side creating the voting map.
And if the primary choice of the states doesn't coincide with the established parties plans, they can ignore the primary votes and chose whoever they want.
Then, at the actual election, we the people, who think they are voting for the person they want, are voting for a representative in the electoral college who can vote however they want.
If every single person in the USA wrote in the same name, a 100% agreement, the electoral college would still be able to choose whoever that wanted.

Its time for each person born in the USA to be given the vote at age 18, whether or not they register, we all have a social security number, it should come with a vote.  And if the total vote for a person is higher than the other person, that person should win.

It should not be that if 49% wants one and 51% wants the other, then that state is all voting for the 51% person. 

Every vote should count. 

If the people screw up, it should be because they screwed up, not because the rules were made so convoluted that the people have no idea who won the vote.  And not because they were manipulated by those same rules to feel that the person in office is who most people wanted, so they deserve what they get.

Popular vote may not have worked in ancient Greece, but it was ANCIENT Greece, a place without equality except for the citizens, not the servants, not the slaves, not the females, just the very special citizens.  And it didn't work forever there.

Its time for real equality, real democracy.  Its time for the Vote of the People to be the Truth.