Extinction

 

“He who does not at some time, with definite determination

 consent to the terribleness of life,

or even exalt in it,

 never takes possession 

of the inexpressible fullness 

of the power of our existence.”

                                     Ranier Maria Rilke from Selected Letters                                                                                                                                                                                                 

I am a dead man. Worse yet, I am still alive. I am on the extinction line. We, the shut-ins and house-bound, are the ones who are already more dead than alive, we are about to be gone, to exist no more. In my case, I am human. Proof positive that this extinction event is going to take humans down too — it is, in fact, already doing so.

Going out of existence, dying isn’t new, or unusual, but in today’s terms, being made extinct is. Waiting to die has usually been left to the old, now it can happen to anyone. Extinction is a global phenomenon, hurried along by the massive ignorance of our kind. So, in some way, there is a kind of justice that accompanies the ending that awaits us all. An ending that is already happening, especially for those who are most vulnerable.

I am one of them. The ones that are out of sight, voiceless, and powerless. Shut-ins and the house-bound. The first to go. Condemned early by the force-field of ignorance. Humanity’s refusal to recognize limitations. I am going to go early, like many of the species who rely on others for their survival. Our limitations insure it. And, the limitations of those who recognize no limitations.

It’s a terrible thing recognizing that your time is up. It is even more poignant when one recognizes, that one is fated to absorb the same hit that is going on in the natural world. I have always known our destinies are linked, but now I know the same insensitivities that doom one, also affect the other. Climate change also means social change. All of it is driven, in part, by human consciousness, or should I say, lack of consciousness. It could be either, or both. The effect is the same.

It’s not that I don’t want to die. I accept that part of my fate. It is that our inhumanity extends to each other, and particularly to our most vulnerable. Just as we should be trying to preserve our endangered species, we should be trying to preserve the lives of those who have lost the means to help themselves. Equal justice should apply uniformly.

What troubles my heart is that we seem intent upon ridding ourselves of those who know dependence isn’t just a bad thing, and that all Life depends. In some painful ways, we are disposing of our chances. Drowning together, is anxiety-provoking, but dismissing those who cannot help themselves — wherever they lay in the animal kingdom— is not my idea of how I want to go out. Integrity matters too! If that is the result that we have made inevitable, then I have a lot to grieve in the time left to me.

From this sad place, the world looks like a trampled miracle. The faces of the suffering are, oddly, more beautiful. The glory of who we are, is increasingly hollow, and in some strange way, more awesome. I accept the refusal that permeates much of human life, and yet I long for, and dream of, the few who live by broader laws.