Carry On, Mate!

So, here we are, barely into the 21st century and at least the Awaken acknowledge the damage our collective transformation of underground energy to sustain our life platform is a terminal condition. Global warming is a reality, just as sure as the rotation of our fragile planet is real. Global warming has begun to seriously degrade the ice covering both ends of our planet and the high elevated glaciers that serve as mankind's water towers. When these reservoirs peter out, great upheavals along most of the major rivers will be a colossal -- massive migration, starvation, and death. -- will be the dominant headlines of 2020 and onward.

Is it only fitting that the human species be punished for the devastation it has brought forth for other species as well as the environment that sustains all forms of life? For every advantage there's a disadvantage, according to one of nature's ironclad rules. That we've been deriving energy from the burning of fossil-fuels that degrade the atmosphere for well over a century, leaves us where civilizations first degraded their environment with the destruction of forests used for energy. Humans, we suppose, could have continued living in trees and caves and left the land intact, to be shared with other beasties.

Or, had our limbs and hands remained as they are with our relatives who still swing from trees, and our brains not evolved larger and we had kept our fur and tails, perhaps we'd all be enjoying romping in the veld today. So, for those great sardine tin cans in the sky and giant ocean travelling canoes of steel, and tall steel boxes on boxes clad with glass and mortar, we have sacrificed our innocent and guiltless role in the story of planet Earth, or whatever it is the gods call it.

We are stuck in this time period called Now. That's where all 6.3 billion of us find ourselves. We can't move time back one single day, or move it forward a day. What happened yesterday might be instructive in averting the more destructive behavior of yesterday tomorrow, but we can't actually see what tomorrow has for us -- only what our puny brain power tells us is most likely, or probable.

Theoretically, the primary contributors to the global warming scourge can change the course of this phenomenon. Political leaders can lead and those who believe the threats to civilization are real can contribute with their individual actions. The vested interests who stand to lose out will do everything they can to thwart progress. You'd think that with the inevitable movement toward renewable energy, sooner or later, that these same interests would begin to contribute to the solution rather than fight progress. That is the rationalist's hope, so often in vain, but we can't help it. We were taught logic and we learned psychologic, and knew illogical when we witnessed it, even as we were guilty of our own illogic and willingness to have our emotions rule our heads.

It was my chronic curiosity that led to my initial interest in Mr. Pant. He came across as a different breed ofHomo sapien. But, I suspect that my interest in him was fueled by his weirdness. Weirdness can be a strong magnet to the curious, but etiquette (and common sense) demands that you dare not stare at a weird Homo sapien. and certainly you would never, never ask such a person why he was wearing, for example, a raccoon coat when it was hot inside.

When Mr. Pant abruptly told me that my "report" was late, it did cause me to lose my rational bearing -- for, all my worldly training is based on Q & A. Someone asks a question, not just any person, but a person identified as worthy of asking you a question to which, by custom, you are obligated to respond. A hairless, bluish persona wearing a raccoon coat doesn't really qualify, but when you are the aggressor, the Q person, you are inevitably exposed to whatever the answer is, even if it is not even an answer, but embodies a command. Where is that report?

We've been through all this by far too much, I know. I haven't seen Mr. Pant for quite some time, since last year, before the election in November. Nobody at the fitness center has seen him. Good riddance, I say. Except for the fact that he planted a seed, which was probably his intention, I' feel relieved with his absence. But that's not a resolution, that's maybe just a temporary reprieve.

Well, I remember now -- the last time I saw him I told him I'd decided to go ahead and do the report and wanted to know what my compensation would be? That was sensible, don't you think? Pant didn't give me an answer, and got away before I could gather my wits, much less restrain his exit.

I'm still ambivalent about doing that report. What would I put into that report? Why do the report at all if our specie is headed for extinction? Who would be around to read it? Well, if our friends from Outer Space want the report, and don't intend to hang around our doomed planet, what's the point? But, then, I remember doing all kinds of reports for clients in the past, and once they had the report, they ignored the information in the report. Would that be my experience once again?

I wish I could get over my hangup looking for Mr. Pant. It is most annoying. I've got to work on how best to "disappear" him. Phoof!! And just like that he's gone.