Mother Earth’s Suicide
What do we give back to Mother Earth?
This question has floated around my head for years, as I try to justify my life as a human being. Nature has a way of keeping itself in balance, cleansing itself when the scales start tipping to one side or the other. However, I, as a human, cannot find myself within the equation of balance. I take from nature, yes, but I give nothing back. The only thing I can think of is that, upon my death, my body will serve as a nutrient-rich mass for smaller organisms to thrive. In a sense, that could justify my stance in the world, but at the same time, aren’t I taking more while living, than I give by dying? In that same line of thought, wouldn’t the best option be to commit suicide in a barren land as soon as possible?
As enticing and optimal as it may appear, I have two things going against me: my instinct of self-preservation, and my fear of hurting the ones I love. Now, the instinct part can be bypassed. All it takes is some wholehearted decisions and depriving myself of anything that might aid the cowardly part of me that wants to stay alive. The other part, however, may be quite difficult. Social customs have been ingrained in my head since I was born, and that means that I feel a great debt to those around me. Unfortunately, I have developed strong feelings for those I love, and that means that the notion of me hurting them is too great. If those feelings weren’t genuine, chances are that I wouldn’t be writing this today. Nonetheless, there is still the matter of what I give back to Mother Earth.
Perhaps the error is thinking of Mother Earth as something that “needs” to be alive. After all, “life finds a way”... but does it have to? Just because something lives and fights to keep going doesn’t mean that it should. I have read, heard and seen others justify their existence with arguments such as “keeping the species alive”. There is still no strong reason for us to keep going on, other than our desire to do so, but that’s not good enough. While the desire part may be strong, subjectively, I don’t believe it’s good enough since it implies the exploitation and desecration of nature. Our sustainability is the violent degradation of the one thing that keeps us alive in the first place.
If Mother Earth could think, would she want to die?
