Extinction and Existentialism

 Humanity is on the precipice of the Earth’s sixth major extinction. A businessman who thinks global warming is a hoax brought on by the Chinese (Trump, 2012) is now president of the United States. Isis is taking free will and bombing where they please. What is going on? Are people going to be content to just sit and tolerate what is given to them? If humans want to survive as a species, it’s time to transform to a higher level, a higher state of being. It’s time to shift and mentally evolve to ensure the security of future generations. It’s time to get back to the roots of how the ancients lived. To realize that every individual has power and to fully realize oneself and give one’s life meaning.

 

Previous civilizations have existed anywhere from 150 to thousands of years. One of the longest occurring in Mesopotamia (TIme Maps Ltd., 2017). The United States is a baby compared to the B.C. societies and even Europe or Africa. This current country that was founded in 1776 is young but has overstayed it’s welcome and is overdue for a change. Kierkegaard is considered one of the founders of existentialism and he believed that in order for an individual to have meaning they had to accept God (a higher source of love) in their lives (Evolutionary Existentialism, 2000). The time that is coming is going to be hard and unless people come together as a community of like-minded individuals, Homo Sapiens will go the way of the Neanderthal; bye-bye.

Extinction

The Earth is alive and has a cyclical rhythm. History repeats itself but the devastation that is being wreaked is only from the advent of industrialization right after WWII. As money, jobs and the economy grew, so did the population. Because of this boom the planet is now overworked and pushed to the brink, unable to handle the exponential growth of one species: humans.    Major extinctions are normal, and they seem to come every 60 – 100 million years. The last major one occurred 65 million years ago and marked the beginning of the Tertiary period (History, n.d.) The Earth is now due for another one and with all the added stressors there are many signs indicating that the next one is imminent. The sea levels are rising, the carbon dioxide saturation is the highest in history, the coral reef is dying, and the poles are the smallest they’ve ever been.

Sea Levels

The “global sea level has been rising over the past century, and the rate has increased in recent decades. In 2014, global sea level was 2.6 inches above the 1993 average – the highest annual average in the satellite record (1993-present). Sea level continues to rise at a rate of about one-eighth of an inch per year.” (NOAA, 2016) Eight out of ten of the world’s largest cities with over 35% of the worlds’ population are near the coast. One billion people live at sea level or just a few meters above it. The bulk of these people are living in the poorest countries of Southeast Asia, the west coast of Africa, and on the Mediterranean Sea (Hinrichsen, 2017). The US has some of the lowest concentrations of population but contribute some of the largest percentages of greenhouse gases and consume most of the worlds’ oil. The people who are being most effected can’t do anything to stop it because they are not the one’s causing it. Time to wake up America and see what all our industrialization has done to the Earth and her bounty. Time to heed ancient philosophers like Kierkegaard and realize that the power to change this path is inside all of us. We as individuals have power.

A reason for the rise in sea levels can be that the poles are melting and at a faster rate than previously projected. In 2003 NASA published an article stating the “sea ice that survives the summer and remains year-round-called perennial sea ice-is melting at the alarming rate of 9 percent per decade” (Ramanujan, 2003). Last year they reported that the perennial sea ice had melted at a rate of 13.5 percent per decade (Vinas, 2017). When the poles melt, the seas rise. When the seas rise, people and our environment are drastically affected. Saltwater encroaches in on fresh water like the Everglades in Florida. It invades the aquifer and porous limestone bedrock that lies under the state and contaminates the fresh water that feeds millions of people in south Florida. Higher sea levels mean catastrophe not only for people but for the environment and ecosystems as well.

Carbon Dioxide

Another imminent problem is Carbon Dioxide (CO2). CO2 is a man-made green-house gas that is most detrimental to the environment. It acts like a thermal blanket around the earth absorbing heat and warming the surface. The CO2 level is a measurement of how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere in parts per million and was first taken in 1958 by Charles D. Keeling. The samples are taken from remote areas so as not to get any interference from nearby cities. It is climbing faster than anticipated with levels exceeding all prior ones in history. Scientists can take ice core samples and analyze the Earth’s atmosphere dating from when time began. In 2013, CO2 levels surpassed 400 ppm for the first time in recorded history (NASA, 2013).

Coral Bleaching

Coral bleaching is a worldwide dilemma. One of the largest is the Great Barrier Reef that lies along the coast of Australia and covers 132,974 square miles. According to the article, second wave of mass bleaching unfolding on Great Barrier Reef, written by the Australian Government “The aerial survey of the Reef, the first for 2017, found severe bleaching in offshore reefs from north of Ingham to the northern extent of the survey near Cairns. This year more bleaching is being observed in this central part of the Reef, which last year escaped widespread severe bleaching.” A separate study published by multiple global scientists said that “During 2016, record temperatures triggered a pan-tropical episode of coral bleaching, the third global-scale event since mass bleaching was first documented in the 1980s” (Terry P. Hughes, 2017). If the coral reefs die so does our fisheries and once the fisheries go, the life pyramid will deteriorate. 

Homo Sapiens have evolved little over the past 200,000 years of existence. Since appearing in Southern Africa and migrating into Europe and Asia our basic design has not varied, “…Cro-Magnon looked so much like us that, if dressed like us in modern clothes, they would be lost in the crowds of any European or American city (Sitchin, 1991). Up until now there has been a lot of learning like agriculture, herding, social structure, etc. The first time our species took an evolutionary leap was with the eating of meat. This caused our brains to grow because of the good fats humans were now ingesting. Homo sapiens began to flourish and create a society. Laws and social structure were formed. Ancient Sumer is credited with creating most of the social structure still used today. Language, writing, art, music, and much more is found on the clay tablets discovered within the last century. This is when homo sapiens last evolved. Technologically people have reached their peak, the evolution that is needed now is emotional. The world has only been focused on technology since the industrial revolution and it has brought us to the brink of collapse. That knowledge has done more damage in the past 100 years than all the other years of people existing on the planet combined. To survive the upcoming shift, the individual must be realized.

Changes are needed on so many levels, where should one start? It’s time to learn to grow your own food, produce your own energy, store your own water from rain and find modes of transportation to take the place of cars. We see the biggest change that is needed though is internal. Individuals need to wake up from their mainstream slumber and pay attention to what is going on around them. The underlying theme of these changes is self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is a core existentialist belief. Reliance on yourself is a “perceived necessity for self-construction and is fundamental to existential thought, because for existentialists there is no reason to suppose that meaning comes prepackaged along with life itself” (Evolutionary Existentialism, 2000). By being self-sufficient a person is the ultimate individual and existentialism believes in individuality. On Kierkegaard’s tombstone, it simply reads The Individual (Evolutionary Existentialism, 2000). By realizing one’s own individuality a person gives themselves meaning and purpose. Though most existentialists also believe that in being an individual, there is no connection to anything else, some went against that common theme and interpreted it differently. Kierkegaard was one of them. Considered a founder of existentialism he valued religion and God. Believing that one can only reach the true meaning of oneself by accepting God as the absolute higher power (Evolutionary Existentialism, 2000). He also wrote of the three phases of authenticity; the aesthetic, ethical and transformative phase. In that last stage, a person accepts God into their lives and therefore transcends to a higher state of being. He illustrates these phases in all his works just in different ways.

Ascension

When an individual realizes the full potential he/she possess, it gives their lives meaning and purpose. Ultimately that is what every human being is searching for on Earth: meaning. By creating that meaning a human’s true design is fulfilled. With a shift of the mind; an opening and cleansing of the pineal occurs. An acceptance that every person has a path and that the way to find that path is by letting more love in. Frequencies are found in every part of our world and affect everyone’s reality, what is seen and felt. Love is a frequency that resonates through the human body and touches every molecule in the DNA strand. While there is no “real” science to back that up there are professionals in the medical and scientific world that provide evidence to support this.

In the article Living in the Love Vibration, written by Dr. Shirley Marshall, Ph.D., she talks about the law of attraction and how what people project outwardly is what they will receive inwardly. She says that “when we live in the love vibration, our energy resonates at a high frequency and we express the God-qualities of compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, respect, generosity, joy, peace-all that inspires, empowers and enhances life” (Shirley Marshall, n.d.) This is the way the homo-sapiens’ species is to evolve, by accepting love and projecting that love back out.

In Kierkegaards’ Fear and Trembling he describes the greatest love of all between Abraham, Isaac and God. Abraham had waited almost a hundred years for his son Isaac to be born. Throughout that time, he never lost faith in God, always believing his son would come. After Isaac was born, God told Abraham to take him to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him. Abraham didn’t doubt or falter. He had faith, not just a belief, that God had a plan and loved him. When Abraham arrived at the top of the mountain, he bound Isaac and right before he was about to perform the sacrifice he saw the ram God had left for him to use instead of his son (Kierkegaard, 1983). Because Abraham never faltered he ascended to a higher level that day. He held fast to his faith, faith that he had a higher purpose, a destiny. He didn’t question God but instead took solace in the knowledge that everything was going to be ok. Kierkegaard gives a good example to follow. By embracing faith and absolute knowledge, Abraham evolved in the most important way the current population needs to also. If he had taken the easy way out and committed suicide or sacrificed something else in Isaac’s place he would have died never realizing his full potential, his chosen path. Abraham went on to be an important part of the Jewish religion, a prophet and holy man in his own right.

In conclusion extinction is imminent and evolution is mandatory. If people can realize they are light born, like stars, then maybe a few will be saved.

The I Ching states that “from chaos, stars are born” so is true for the human race. This is a time of chaos. Everything humanity has known for the past thousands of years is about to change. The Earth is going to shake off the general public like fleas from a dog and it won’t be pretty. It won’t be accomplished through just one device either. It will be a combination of factors; disease, war, famine, severe weather, economic and environmental displacement.

One way to prepare is for people to evolve mentally. Love needs to be a focus in the general populations lives. Both taking it in and letting it out. People have stressed the system to a point beyond repair and never seen in history.

Unless major changes are made by society and the individual, catastrophe will ensue.

The time to act is now. The time for change was yesterday…I’m aware, are you?

All we have is bliss.

One Love.

 

 

 

Works Citied

Evolutionary Existentialism, S. a. (2000). Evolutionary Existentialism, Sociobiology, and the Meaning of Life. Bio Science, 1012.

Hinrichsen, D. (2017, April 25). World Watch Institute. Retrieved from The Oceans are Coming Ashore: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/492

History, A. M. (n.d.). Mass Extinction. Retrieved from American Museum of Natural History: http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/dinosaurs-ancient-fossils-new-discoveries/extinction/mass-extinction/

Kierkegaard, S. H. (1983). Kierkegaard’s Writings, VI: Fear and Trembling/Repetition. In S. H. Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard’s Writings, VI: Fear and Trembling/Repetition (pp. 12, 15-24). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

NASA. (2013). The Relentless Rise of Carbon Dioxide. Retrieved from Global Climate Change.

NOAA. (2016, December 22). Is Sea Level Rising? Retrieved from National Ocean Service: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sealevel.html

Ramanujan, K. (2003, October 24). Earth Observatory. Retrieved from NASA: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/

Shirley Marshall, P. (n.d.). Living in the Love Vibration. Retrieved from Unity a positive path for spirtitual living: http://www.unity.org/resources/articles/living-love-vibration

Sitchin, Z. (1991). The 12th Planet. In Z. Sitching. Bear & Company.

Terry P. Hughes, e. (2017). Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals. Nature International Weekly Journal of Science, 373-377.

TIme Maps Ltd. (2017). Time Maps Middle East. Retrieved from Time Maps : http://www.timemaps.com/history/middle-east-500bc/

Trump, D. (2012, November 6). @RealDonaldTrump. Retrieved from Twitter: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/265895292191248385?lang=en

Vinas, M.-J. (2017, March 22). Sea Ice Extent Sinks to Record Lows at Both Poles. Retrieved from NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/sea-ice-extent-sinks-to-record-lows-at-both-poles