Shifting promises

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

By Brooke Williams

Last week I passed the hospital where I was born. I thought about my birth in context with all the ongoing human births since we first appeared on earth. First, the births have all been difficult for the mother. As one of the most intelligent species on earth, we traded away easy childbirth for large brains.

It must be just as difficult for the baby. I can only imagine the womb environment - the peacefulness, the muted sounds, the heavily diffused light, a floating sensation, continually flowing food, a thick fluid to cushion and slow every movement. Why did we leave? Biologically, we had to. This is the plan and the rule.

I’ve been wondering what life promised me and every human that ever came down the birth canal.

Clean air for one thing, and clean water. Food that was what our bodies required to thrive, and any clothing or shelter needed depending on the climate or season. We were promised a life of community - no one can survive alone. What might seem to us living now as hours of daily idleness were days once filled with story and song.

We were promised integration and clear, biological intention - bodies that understood our future with all the steps laid out. We were promised mental abilities: to believe and understand; to learn and remember. We were promised wild, fenceless, free and open space.  We were promised grizzly bears and wolves and dog-toothed violets in the spring. We were promised Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers.

Much of modern economic theory is based on the difference between “needs” and “wants”. Needs suggest urgency, that without them we will die or at least be seriously diminished in some way. Wants are things that are optional, not necessary or essential. Basic biological needs include food, water, shelter, clothing - all of which we would die or be extremely diminished without.

At birth, we were promised clean water,  pure water. Clean and pure water is no longer a need. The only way to get clean, pure water is to want it - to buy it. Rarely do people drink water out of their own taps anymore, let alone streams or rivers, no matter how wild. Bottled water takes up more space on store shelves than Coke or Budweiser, and costs more than gasoline. The plastic residue is its own environmental curse.  The promise made to me and all the rest of us at birth, has shifted.

It’s the same with food. The food we were promised at birth was not only edible and nutritious, but safe to eat. Unfortunately, that promised has shifted, too. We’re still promised food to fill our needs (our expanding stomachs), but in order to produce what our burgeoning population requires, it comes with engineered genes, chemicals, and artificial colors. Much of food available in grocery stores today is made to look like something it isn’t.  

Each of us was promised a life that was not ecologically comprised.
We are learning restraint. The survival of our continually increasing population is now only possible by changing the rules, shifting the promises.

PERMALINK:
Shifting promises | Planet JH News Article: Left Wing Local

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