This very Earth

This Very Earth...is leading us

It was just another day so to speak. Though there was no one as we know to call it a day or night as the sun shone always on one half of this very Earth. But somehow it was a different day or night, something happened that changed everything forever. Earth stirred, so to speak, with desire and transformed itself to facilitate an evolution of complex structures that eventually transformed into what is now called life. It took only some millions of years. We who think we are droplets of awareness and consciousness may not perceive the interconnectedness of everything on this very Earth. For this species that thinks, acts and analyses events over decades, comprehending acts that work over millions of years is not so easy. We now talk of the interconnectedness of the world as we see it, and debate about the intricacy and size of the Web as we call the internet and the fallout of financial schemes across the world, globalisation and what not. But for a sentient being that has for millions of years used various structures to communicate and plan for its next stage of transformation these are trivial. We don't think much of the single celled organisms that we host on and inside us and exchange with all other forms of life, every breathing moment of our short existence and all the other single celled organisms that decompose our body and analyse its life and evolution to propagate to the next generation. We don't think of the huge mass of planktons that the ocean currents transport across the ends of the world, the pollen carried by the winds full of memory, insects that migrate seasonally, currents of the ocean. We debate endlessly about the greenhouse emissions and what it is doing to this very Earth of ours. We investigate the past trying to figure out which human species is superior and where the first human species originated, or how and why the dinosaurs became extinct. We imagine some accidental cataclysmic natural event, such as a meteor impact that transformed the habitat drastically it didn't allow certain organisms enough time to evolve and adapt, For a moment if we pause to think, it will be self evident that Earth adjusting and transforming itself to ease out unpromising species, such as the mega size dinosaurs with pea sized brains, to make way for more promising species such as mammals to evolve. More millions of years ago Earth adjusted itself to change its composition to facilitate the creation of complex structures such as single cell life, to evolve out of its oceans. And many more millions ago it transformed itself to form simpler structures such as water and even adjusted the crust to make room for more water. For us who measure our individual lifetime in decades, and now maybe a few thousand years after discovering writing and found ways to store knowledge outside of our body in various storage devices and in cultural memory, the time dimension even now is incomprehensible. When finally a so-called thinking-being evolved it started thinking that everything else was made for itself to use. Of course this is true not in the egoistic way of the man-species but because that was what Earth intended in the first place. It found that other species typically adjusted themselves as the habitat changed to evolve and survive in the new habitats. Then finally a species started adjusting its immediate habitat to suit itself and stopped changing physically. Earth facilitated this by reducing the connection man has to the rest of the world so that man evolved a certain characteristic trait that has now come to be called ego which is nothing but a disconnected feeling that allows him to exploit all resources available within reach without much guilt. Earth transformed itself to provide man concentrated energy sources such as oil for short term use, nuclear energy for long term use to make such things as space travel possible using highly dense energy compounds; and various biological resources for survival through the ages. If we move inexorably towards making drastic changes to the available habitat so that most other species and ourselves cannot exist long enough, and serve to achieve Earth's purpose, it is only a matter of time before it adjusts itself to ease out man and allow another more promising species to make a fresh attempt.

Well, that fine morning many millions of years ago, as the sun shone on it warmly, This Very Earth that is us, felt a stir of desire to meet other Earths and since then it has never been the same again.