“We’re so self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails. And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. Save the planet?! We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves … The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate-tectonics, solar flares, magnetic storms … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think a few plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference?

The planet isn’t going anywhere … WE are!

We’re going away … We’re going away, and we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam … The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic.” ~ George Carlin

…..

OK, this quote is a little negative and somewhat edgy, I’ll admit (to be Kind, I even edited out Carlin’s more ‘in your face’ phrases), and yet it does make an important point: The Universe is doing just fine — We are indeed far too “small” to really do any permanent damage to our planet’s “bigger picture”.

AAAAAAAANNNNNND YET, George seemed to miss another point — one that is possible much much much more important:

WHAT WE DO HERE TRULY DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

You see, Earth Day is about so much more than just taking care of the planet — It’s just as much about remembering to Care for each other. After all, if we can remember to actively do the latter, the former will naturally follow.

So get involved this Earth Day. Heck, make the principles of Earth Day your entire Earth Year — make them an entire Earth Life … Just remember while you are doing so WHY you are doing so.

It’s not for the Earth …

… It’s for each other.

“When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” ~ Albert Camus

Filed under: Wisdoms from the Journey by Scaughdt