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sábado, 10 de agosto de 2013

CONNECTING WITH LIFE: GREAT APES ARE NOT FOR THE COOKING POT

By Hugo M. G. von Österreich und von Toskana
August 10, 2013



Source: fanpop!



There is no question that man is a capitalist at heart. The exceptional few ones that pop out once in a while are immediately swallowed by the strong current of the social river created by this primate, often only surviving as forgotten transients or rejects set aside, with no use, and seen as garbage or parasites. 

Perhaps more attention should be put to these natural innovations, because they obviously have a different way of seen the world. 

It is not rare for these so called social rejects found on the streets of any modern city to have a deep egalitarian highlight for their own or a profound insight into the nonhuman lives they encounter on their paths.  

Some beggars on the city streets tend to make life lasting friendships with abandoned pets (Fig. 1). Relationships that are so often broken so easily by well-off people out of convenience.



Figure 1. Beggar with pet. Source: Chef Devagi Sanmugam



Alas!!, a quality not so common and so much needed in these days of keen and brutal globalisation.

Many Homo "sapiens" are born wizards of human transactions. Their powerful grabbing influence can be seen everywhere, not necessarily on the positive side. 

Their uterine footprints are out in the open, under the Sun. Their scars instead of adding substract so much from the upkeep of our dear Biosphere in the long run.

Even the name given to the science that studies the relationships of living beings with the environment, ecology, bears this mark of their gainful dealings.

Ecology is tainted with capitalism, for its derived from the Greek, oikos, meaning house, dwelling place, habitat, and logiastudy of. In other words, ecology is the study of the house, the description of the habitation. 

And to do this you have to get involved with economics, the administration of the house (Gk, nomos, management). Ecology is the description and economy is the management of the house.

Perhaps giving tokens or gifts as a way of securing social relationships or procuring sexual favours amongst members of the same band or tribe started man´s career on the economic highway.

From the band level of social organisation, man elevated himself, using warfare and looting or sporadic exchanging of resources, climbing up to the peak of statehood, where he has come to a zenith where his "instinct" to gain has brought him to a point of endangering the only oikos he has, Earth.

So where is he now? Where is this two-legged biped primate, the haughty beast? Where is this living being that considers himself the pinnacle of evolution on Earth, even though he is obviously not the last word on this road?

He is confronted with the bare fact that his economical machine is totally out of control. 

His oikos devouring machinery has given him power to destroy or caring. Nevertheless, he too often chooses to keep on conducting his machines on a crooked course. And his inventions are biting him back.

Man is literally destroying his oikos. Oikos is now whipping and lashing like a dying monster that is about to swallow him. And it will if man does not straighten his senseless and destructive course.

Oikos is alive and is much older than man. After all, oikos created man. Oikos will rearrange a few things here and there, after sending this beast back to where it belongs, the realm of oblivion, for not obeying the natural laws. 

Dawn will come and find this world on its way to recover its lost time with man. A disobedient realised possibility which called himself "Homo sapiens" will be buried, nobody will weep his departure. 

Another possibility will appear, perhaps with keener eyes, higher consciousness and plenty of common sense to connect with the whole.

One miracle will be gone and another will come into being. Each speck of life is a miracle. Such is the force of life...


Connecting with life

Yes, when man is gone a new living realised possibility with more sense to connect will appear. Capable of connecting in subtle and grand ways with the force of life on Earth. 

Man is limping and is what is killing him: His lack to connect with the essence of life. 

It makes sense to connect with this river, the water that keeps all creatures great and small, virus, bacteria, fungi or plants alive.

Man is too busy perfecting his dead machines. Proudly, he cannot accept that he was not meant to fly, dig or swim but to think and live.

His thinking has given him rockets and airplanes to take him to the sky, submarines to explore the depths of the ocean, mechanical giant shovels to tear up mountains, advanced electronics that have enhanced even more his thinking and other machines, too many to keep him worried day and night.

It is obvious that his gadgets give him an edge to survive. But at the same this worry to improve further his machines has totally disconnected him from what is really important in life: To connect with the life force that pervades everything around him. To connect with the whole. To feel this connection should be his goal.

Is a humble earthworm not connected with the whole? Is a mole not connected with the entire world of soil? is a fern not connected with the whole forest?

They are. Perhaps in ways which man will never understand. 

How does it feel? What is their secret? 

All living beings are connected and work towards the maintenance of the whole. 

Man is not as he should. He dwells too much in his bicameral mind and insists on separating his body from his soul. 

His body is obviously connected to the whole but his mind is far removed from it. He cannot accept a condition of just being. He is determined to be a god.

On this quest to become a god, his thoughts have devoured him. He has busied himself only in keeping polished his creations and  designing and creating machines, so many that he has ended up alienated from the natural world that never stops talking to him.

He is too busy with dead intelligence. He has even forgotten of his fellow men and women, those that are starving around the corner. 

Will he ever listen this clamour from the mother of his mother?

The time to do so is right here and now. Tomorrow could be too late...

Why not do it? We are all equipped to do so. It is just a matter of letting loose our inner child to wonder and sing along with Mother Nature!

A night owl hoots... How Beautiful! A pine tree whispers... How wonderful!! 

I can move with my legs! I can see with my eyes! It is a miracle!! I am immensely rich!!!!!!

I feel connected. Feeling connected is wonderful!! I need nothing more!!! 

Now I only need patience. Patience to deal with my unconnected human brethren who surround me.

As you read the next lines, please see if you can connect with what you should be connected.


Poaching for radio batteries

The poaching news that follow are sinister deeds that can be done only by people who are unconnected, functioning on dead intelligence, or perhaps so cornered that they are starving. 

Bearing in mind that what appears as people having problems with survival or facing difficult times trying to feed a family, upon a closer look very often turn out to be poachers making money only to buy the batteries for their radios or to buy a new shirt to impress their neighbours. 

Money "needed" for status symbols to let their folks or neighbours know that things are fine at their own household front since image is very important for human beings.

No matter what the reason might be, the result of their poaching is horrible. 

Damn it!! What the hell is man waiting for to wake up and stop this carnage?



Great apes are not for bushmeat

The wheel of life in Africa is in danger of losing one of its spokes: The great apes.

The number of chimpanzees, for instance, is declining at an alarming rate. When Dr. Jane Goodall began her study, there were at least one million of these great apes, now there are only about 150,000 and the population number is still dropping. 

Why are chimpanzees disappearing? 

Man is killing them to eat them. Illegal hunting is sending our closest relatives into the oblivion pot. 

Great apes are in high demand as bushmeat in the black market (Video 1).

                                             Video 1. Extermination of great apes for bushmeat.



Man, the economics loving beast, is killing his closest relatives to make a buck. With his nasty bushmeat trade, he is emptying the African oikos out of the great apes. 

An illegal trade that goes beyond the African continent. It even reaches Europe including the United Kingdom, Russia, China, Japan and the United States.

The well-off parvenus in the "developed" nations crave this type of bustmeat and closer at home in Africa, people salivate just thinking of eating a chimpanzee hand in soup.

We should all be concerned for our brethren, the great apes.

Otherwise, what is left. 

Has Homo "sapiens" already gone beserk?

References

Ape Alliance (1998). The African Bushmeat Trade - A Recipe for Extinction. Ape Alliance, Cambridge, UK. 47 p.

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