The Value of a Heartbeat
I have felt, for a period of some years and more frequently since 2016, that the planet would be better off without human beings. I’ve said it, I’ve thought it, and this is the first time I’ve written it. I would be happy to be the first in line, gladly give up my life in the certain knowledge that without us, Earth could heal, cleanse itself, and nurture all the countless species we have failed to notice, value, and cherish. Let the rape stop. Let the wide-scale poisoning stop. Let the brutality, suffering, stupidity, greed, and criminal disregard for others stop.
I freely admit to the pessimism and bitterness inherent in my view. I’m also aware of how paradoxical it is. I truly care about most people. Put a single human soul in my path, and I rarely fail to make a connection and feel some kind of empathy and kindness for them. I’ve spent my life caregiving, supporting, and teaching people, taking great joy in my contribution.
In the last few posts on my blog, Harvesting Stones, starting with “The Locked Room,” I’ve thought a great deal about self-love and self-trust. It occurs to me my despair over human behavior as a whole must include me. My willingness to see us all wiped out includes a willingness to be wiped out myself. If other humans are capable of the atrocities happening all around us every day, so am I. If I want to see that dark potential destroyed, if I’d be glad of it, even, my self-love is seriously incomplete.
I’m not sure I’d call it self-hate. I don’t hate myself, you, the stranger on the street, or friends and family, but I hate what we are capable of. I hate what we can (and in some cases choose to) do. I believe some of us are willing to heal, grow, change, unite, and make better choices, but right now most of the human power in the world (as we understand power) lies in the hands of a few louts nobody seems to be able to overcome. Indeed, many cheer them on.
And that could be any of us, cheering them on. In the right context, with the right ideology, it could be any of us. I am too old to tell myself fairy stories about how I would never fill-in-the-blank. Easy to say as I listen to my sheets rotating in the washing machine, drink clean water from my tap, notice the old copper pipes rattling as the furnace comes on, and type on my laptop in my fully electrified, clean, intact house in a peaceful neighborhood on a Sunday morning with my feet propped up on my desk. I am sane. I am healthy. I am well-fed, housed, and employed. Most people do not have the luxuries I take for granted, the safety, the peace. People do terrible things out of terrible pain and dysfunction. I am not immune. None of us are. I’ve been fortunate, and that’s through nothing but luck.
A few weeks ago I read a piece by an author here on Substack, Anna Kay:
She turned me inside out. I wept. I was comforted. I was awed and envious of her evident belief in human goodness. I was softened. I was challenged.
Most of all, I was challenged. As I read her words, I glimpsed a different frame, a frame of hope rather than bitterness.
What moved me most was a world without humans would be a world without stories. A world without stories, a world without music, a world without art. A world without reverence and gratitude for nature. A world without human appreciation. Somehow, that seems like a terrible loss. I’m not sure why. Wouldn’t the planet be every bit as rich and beautiful if no one enjoyed it? Surely it would. Yet the loneliness of feeling unseen and unappreciated hurts because I’ve lived in the heart of that feeling.
The question I ask myself is am I willing to allow some or all of my bitterness to dissolve in order to deepen my ability to self-love? Bitterness is a heavy burden and there’s plenty in the world. Do I need or want to add to it? Is it useful?
It’s true we humans are capable of terrible things. Isn’t it also true we’re capable of remarkable courage, generosity, intelligence, creativity, and love?
Couldn’t we each make a list of human teachers, guides, beloved ones who have inspired us, protected us, and made us smile as well as a list of those who have done us wrong?
Our choice is which list to make, which to dwell on.
I follow several creatives here on Substack simply because they inspire me. They make me feel better about the world, about life, about myself. They balance some of my despair and horror regarding the state of the world with beauty and hope. I’d like to introduce you to some of them:
Anna Kay at
- at A Hill and I
David Knowles at
- at The Light on the Sea
- at The Crow’s Nest
Candace Rose Reardon at
- at Steady
Questions:
Do you believe humans have value as a species? Why or why not?
What human-driven activity gives you hope?
Do you see humans as part of a healthy planet or an invasive species, wiping out all competitors?
Leave a comment below!
This is a powerful piece, full of thoughts and questions and ideas, all of which, of course, make us human. To be able to think through these issues and share them in a piece--a story, if you will--is a wonderful thing, and it is the hope which binds so many of us together. Whether sat around a campfire twenty thousand years ago, or at my computer, typing this, the ability to tell stories and change our lives is not to be taken lightly.
I really enjoyed reading this, thank you. I know you read my words, so you're probably familiar with the phrase I use over and over, "active hope"; not mere optimism, or wishing something could be better, but grasp-the-bull-by-the-horns hope, hope which takes time and effort, and hope which is, therefore, built on far stronger foundations. I think there are many of us (certainly here, but also in places which have never heard of Substack) who know there are other ways to be, kinder ways, more generous, sharing. Ways which will involve societal change, but that is nothing new, we've done it as a species over and over again (have a peek at Jonathan Foster's The Crow, for a recent post on this) and, I am sure, we will once more.
As for a world without humans, I am fairly sure that evolution would kick something else out just as full of the potential for horror and violence, for terrible things, and awesome, for wonders and marvels and stories. I think we stand on a threshold at the moment, and the way forward is a bit more frightening than the way back (the recent way, comfortable systems of power, of belief), which is why so many are willing to simply toil and put up with the nonsense of vast inequality and cruelty. However, I honestly believe change is inevitable, and it is coming, soon (if not already here, in an early form).
By asking questions and thinking the thoughts you have here, you are already a part of that change.
Thanks again, I really appreciated you writing this.
I fully understand where you are coming from here Jennifer. Here are a few thoughts that spring to mind after reading your fascinating post.
There are so many activities and outcomes that humans perform for which I do not feel a collective responsibility. Humans, for example, exhibit extraordinary curiosity about the universe, and through this curiosity have developed spiritual and religious practices. I too am inclined to thinking about "meaning" and "value" so as a human I'm also inclined toward thinking about these things too.
But, when this human curiosity morphs into the creation of powerful religious institutions that have encouraged and supported terrible behaviours like, for example, the inquisition, witch hunts and justifications for racism, then we have to look at the social power structures that enable such behaviours. Yes, humans are creating the power structures, but importantly not ALL humans. Only the ones who have amassed enough power to force their ideologies onto the rest of us.
So then I begin to think about power structures, rather than about a species as a whole (remembering that many indigenous communities actively created social systems to minimise the capacity for power to be condensed into the hands of a few).
The dangerous economic power structure we currently suffer, often referred to as "capitalism" is a recent evolution which was then forcibly spread (through violence) around the world. I would like a different vision for the world to win. Should I as a human accept responsibility for the few extremists who force their ideology onto me? I don't know. I'm not sure women burned at the stake as witches should accept responsibility for their demise because they too were humans in a religious world.
I mean all this in the gentlest of ways, I don't have answers, and I hope this doesn't sound contentious or dismissive. I really don't want to give that impression. But I've always felt uncomfortable with the tendency to suggest humans per se are at fault, when maybe instead the current historical period and the power structures our current dominating ideologies are the problem?