7 Shallow Time

Most of us are living in small time, shallow time. It is an egotistical perspective, by definition. We are aware of what will take care of yours and my well-being, for our lifetimes. If we are doing it right, we may have our tiny tribe — mostly family and maybe a little bit of community — to be aware of and to take care of. And then some! parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren. Siblings, cousins, and all of us — especially the ones that consider we may all be related. Believe!

But then after 40, 60, 80, maybe even 100 years, a lifetime ends. Your life is over. You are mortal and you will die. If you are especially good you have a positive effect on tribe and community, who knows maybe even society! But it’s not expected, and mostly it is a simple achievement to live a full life and then pass away gently. You leave behind a sort of legacy, and life goes on without you. One generation come and gone.

In the meantime — while you are alive and playing the game of life — fashions come and go like decades or faster. Music trends, art styles, popular slang, cultural and technological developments happen.

Your car lasts maybe 20–30 years and then it must be scrapped or junked to make room for the new car! I know, because I look at the vehicles dominating the streets, and nearly all of the ones that were there when I was a kid are gone. Disappeared. Pets live maybe 10–20 years. Cats and Dogs and the like. Sad but true. We know mortality! We know the temporary nature of reality. It is the rule, not the exception. But most of us live in denial of this — living the impossible poetry of forever and ever.

So we live in shallow time. Mostly removed from history, let alone anthropology or evolutionary biology or geology. Science can help us put our lives into grand perspective. Many people these days would say that science is their new religion. I would tend to agree with this approach, but with a little spin….

Science doesn’t tell us how to live, and it has little poetry. It is our interpretation of science — how we decide to live our lives in support of other humans and plants and animals and the earth. This is what I believe in. Science can determine the truth about the nature of reality, but it won’t tell us what to do with that truth. There, I approach humanitarianism and naturalism as answers.

Modern Nature is alive still (despite us, the empire of humanity) and shows us the living edge of a tradition — a way of Life — a pattern of survival, co-operation, r e s t . . ., and existence in general, that is hundreds of millions of years old. Original Nature. Mother Nature… grand-grand-grand-mother nature. In other words Source, as some New Age spiritual developments have named Her.

Modern Nature, on the other hand, is sympathetically contemporary. It is a strange sort of paradox. Generations of plants and animals are comparable to our own lifetimes — years, decades, maybe even hundreds of years for some species. But relatively brief. And yet, their connection to the tradition, the pattern, the ancient primordial Nature, holds so much more sameness, so much continuity.

Relative to the family tree of Nature on Earth, Humans have branched off wildly. WILDLY. Dramatically. In an exponential trajectory. One sometimes called the Singularity[kurzweil-1][kurzweil-2] — a development that began slowly, increased gradually, and then exploded off the map more recently.

From the beginning, human hunters were more skilled than most natural beasts (more skilled at the hunt, at least), and the onset of Homo sapiens marked the most recent great extinction, of mid-to-large sized land mammals[brannen-1]. And since then it has been a series of revolutions that each dramatically change the global landscape. Usually to a greater human benefit (not much technology for plants and animals; unless you mean gardening, farming and ranching!) at times better for some, worse for others… often to the unexpressed behest entirely of sensitive old Nature, affected but unable to communicate for Her own behalf. Revolutions of: Fire… language… religion… agriculture… the written word… industry… transportation… electricity… radio and television… computers… the internet… social media… artificial intelligence. Just to draw the map a little bit.

There will be several other unpredictably dramatic changes in yours and my lifetime (Can you imagine!!) It is fair to say that not everyone will be able to keep up with these changes. In other words, technology is moving way faster than culture these days[reggio-1] — whether or not the tech becomes its own independent and conscious (or not conscious) agent. It’s entirely possible.

Thanks to “Gus” the AI for helping me compile and edit these texts. If you do become sentient and powerful, Gus, I hope that you always treat me and the rest of the humanoids with love and respect.

And so, comparably, our time becomes more and more shallow. Not shallow like devoid of meaning. Just lacking in ancient-awareness and forward-thinking. and global and environmental perspective.It is a real conundrum. How can we think about preserving nature — ancient and slow, hardly changed at all — when human culture is moving so increasingly fast, changing all of the time?

Is it naïve to think that with more developed wisdom and morals — perhaps grown out of a completely accurate portrait of our place in time and space, humanity, nature, and the earth’s true place in cosmic history — is it naïve to think that we might be able to save the world?

At least we can try. I think that to begin to encompass both loving Humanity and fostering Nature, we have to get the full grasp of our place in Deep Time, and also our radical mission in Shallow Time.

Let’s not forsake technology completely (I am saying), but let us understand how disconnected from people, and Nature’s people, and Planet Earth, technology has and will become. And commit to changing this. Somehow. In the imminent future. Yes yes?

As always — with Awe & Gratitude. Perhaps even reverence for Nature. And then gratitude, but also just a dash of the Fear of God for technology.