Humanity’s Insignificance in the History of the World

In an enlightening and educational documentary, The History of the World in 2 Hours which is linked and also visible below, it was reinforced and helped me remember much of what I had learned about how our world evolved. It also made very clear and helped me realize humanity’s insignificance. The world has been around for 14 billion years, humans, in all forms, maybe 200,000 years or less than even 1% of time.

By seeing all that has happened, it helped me understand the insignificance of our existence. Knowing this motivates me even more to want to learn how to live the best we can to make life more livable. Learning to live with and in our world is the only way we will be able to expand our capacity and achieve our potential for a better life. Living in cooperative, not in a competitive way, allows, well actually facilitates, the development of greater complexity. Throughout evolution, it was not that bad was destroyed but that more complex efficient, effective organisms grew from the organisms that did not adapt and cooperate to make life better. A great resource about these concepts is Martin Nowak’s book, “SuperCooperators: Altruism, Evolution, and Why We Need Each Other to Succeed” 2011.

It seems clear we can live better by respecting and cooperating instead of living as if we own the planet which will likely to end our short run. This idea, however, I think was better explained by the comedy genius George Carlin. As he explains, humans are currently acting like a virus on the living human planet which the planet will work to eliminate. Instead of being a virus, we can learn to live as part of this wonderful system in ways that creates interactions so everyone and everything benefits which is paneugenesis or selfish, selfless, synergy.

Make it a Great Week!

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Be Well’r,
Craig Becker