The Value of a Heartbeat
I have felt, for a period of some years and more frequently since 2016, that the planet would be better off without human beings. I’ve said it, I’ve thought it, and this is the first time I’ve written it. I would be happy to be the first in line, gladly give up my life in the certain knowledge that without us, Earth could heal, cleanse itself, and nurture all the countless species we have failed to notice, value, and cherish. Let the rape stop. Let the wide-scale poisoning stop. Let the brutality, suffering, stupidity, greed, and criminal disregard for others stop.
Photo by NASA on Unsplash
I freely admit to the pessimism and bitterness inherent in my view. I’m also aware of how paradoxical it is. I truly care about most people. Put a single human soul in my path, and I rarely fail to make a connection and feel some kind of empathy and kindness for them. I’ve spent my life caregiving, supporting, and teaching people, taking great joy in my contribution.
In my last few posts, starting with “The Locked Room,” I’ve thought a great deal about self-love and self-trust. It occurs to me my despair over human behavior as a whole must include me. My willingness to see us all wiped out includes a willingness to be wiped out myself. If other humans are capable of the atrocities happening all around us every day, so am I. If I want to see that dark potential destroyed, if I’d be glad of it, even, my self-love is seriously incomplete.
I’m not sure I’d call it self-hate. I don’t hate myself, you, the stranger on the street, or friends and family, but I hate what we are capable of. I hate what we can (and in some cases choose to) do. I believe some of us are willing to heal, grow, change, unite, and make better choices, but right now most of the human power in the world (as we understand power) lies in the hands of a few louts nobody seems to be able to overcome. Indeed, many cheer them on.
And that could be any of us, cheering them on. In the right context, with the right ideology, it could be any of us. I am too old to tell myself fairy stories about how I would never fill-in-the-blank. Easy to say as I listen to my sheets rotating in the washing machine, drink clean water from my tap, notice the old copper pipes rattling as the furnace comes on, and type on my laptop in my fully electrified, clean, intact house in a peaceful neighborhood on a Saturday morning with my feet propped up on my desk. I am sane. I am healthy. I am well-fed, housed, and employed. Most people do not have the luxuries I take for granted, the safety, the peace. People do terrible things out of terrible pain and dysfunction. I am not immune. None of us are. I’ve been fortunate, and that’s through nothing but luck.
A few weeks ago I read a piece by an author on Substack, Anna Kay, who writes a newsletter called The Hinterlands. I stumbled across her “A World Without a Heartbeat” by chance. She was not a writer I was familiar with, though I have since subscribed to her. She turned me inside out. I wept. I was comforted. I was awed and envious of her evident belief in human goodness. I was softened. I was challenged.
Most of all, I was challenged. As I read her words, I glimpsed a different frame, a frame of hope rather than bitterness.
I could not possibly paraphrase her words and I wouldn’t dare try to give you a synopsis. It’s not a long piece, and if you only follow one link out of the hundreds I’ve posted here in the last eight years, let this be the one. Please.
By Photoholgic on Unsplash
What moved me most was a world without humans would be a world without stories. A world without stories, a world without music, a world without art. A world without reverence and gratitude for nature. A world without human appreciation. Somehow, that seems like a terrible loss. I’m not sure why. Wouldn’t the planet be every bit as rich and beautiful if no one enjoyed it? Surely it would. Yet the loneliness of feeling unseen and unappreciated hurts because I’ve lived in the heart of that feeling.
The question I ask myself is am I willing to allow some or all of my bitterness to dissolve in order to deepen my ability to self-love? Bitterness is a heavy burden and there’s plenty in the world. Do I need or want to add to it? Is it useful?
It’s true we humans are capable of terrible things. Isn’t it also true we’re capable of remarkable courage, generosity, intelligence, creativity, and love?
Couldn’t we each make a list of human teachers, guides, beloved ones who have inspired us, protected us, and made us smile as well as a list of those who have done us wrong?
Our choice is which list to make, which to dwell on.
I’ve become deeply involved with the Substack community. I follow several other creatives simply because they inspire me. They make me feel better about the world, about life, about myself. They balance some of my despair and horror regarding the state of the world with beauty and hope. I’d like to introduce you to some of them:
- Anna Kay/The Hinterlands
- Susie Mawhinney/A Hill and I
- James Roberts/Into the Deep Woods
- David Knowles/Elvers by Moonlight
- Gillian Eilidh O’Mara/The Light on the Sea
- Alexander M. Crow/The Crow’s Nest
- Candace Rose Reardon/Dandelion Seeds
- Dan Rather/Steady
- Sharon Blackie/“On Faith, and Not Losing It”
Questions:
- Do you believe humans have value as a species? Why or why not?
- What human-driven activity gives you hope?
- Do you see humans as part of a healthy planet or an invasive species, wiping out all competitors?
Leave a comment below!
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