I have a wonderful eight and a half month old Great Dane puppy. Over the last two months she taught me something about why we don't do anything about the destruction of our environment.
This is Freja at 8 weeks old. She's adorable, isn't she? Well, my wife and I think so. At the time this photo was taken, she weighed about 18-20 pounds.
She has a friend, my brother in law's dog, Custos. This is Custos at 2 years old. He's a mix, predominantly a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog. He's about 65 pounds. Custos was, to me, the big dog and my girl was the little dog.
Fast forward to about three weeks ago. Freja now looks like this but I've been with her every day. She is now just over 100 pounds and still growing. My wife and I went over to her brother's place and suddenly Custos was a tiny little dog. I was completely floored by the impression. He was such a small dog!
Last night I finished reading Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed in which he describes one of the reasons societies fail to see looming disaster as "creeping normalcy." I was instantly flung back to my recent experience with the relative size of the dogs in my life.
My Great Dane taught me everything I need to know about creeping normalcy.
If you follow the issues of social stability, sustainability, and global warming, this little diary isn't going to tell you anything you don't already know, but in an odd way, the experience of the incredible shrinking dog shook me to the core.
As I drove to work this very morning, the Minnesota Public Radio show "Mid Morning" announced that this week one of the hour long call in shows would be with a U of M professor and it would be about the serious consequences for agriculture of the recent dramatic decline in the bee population in Minnesota. The little hints of danger are everywhere. Our warm winter. The dying pines of the Minnesota north woods. The increasing acidity of the oceans killing coral reefs and collapsing fisheries. It all fades into the background chatter of public radio interviews and televised distractions.
But the creeping normalcy runs deeper than our looming environmental dangers. Seeing Custos transformed from a huge dog to a tiny dog through my mere inattention struck me, in a way that even my own father's death did not, with the transience of life; with the constancy of mutability. With the pressure of unstoppable time.
For those who have read Socrates and Thoreau, I'm not going to tell you anything you don't already know. We slide through life semi-conscious. We buy a house and we work for a wage because that's how you live, right? We run through our lives along tracks set down by the mass culture and fall into the groove and we run with it.
I'm not going to say that life is a bad life. It certainly doesn't have to be. Taking the easy route and being ordinary can be very comfortable and satisfying. But only if it is the life you choose. Only if the option is elected rather than defaulted. It is ridiculous to assert that the life of the ordinary average guy is some sort of profound tragedy when one looks at life in East Africa or even in an American town where the steel mill just closed or the car factory was shut down.
No, I'm just saying that it is the inattention that leads to disaster. That it is the unconsciousness that causes waste.
Custos, the suddenly tiny dog, was a surprising reminder to me. A reminder that the need to be aware is a great responsibility. It applies to every issue we face as a nation, as a species, as a planet. From energy to the environment to war, peace, justice, and economic fairness. We need to know not only what is happening, but what should be happening. We need to understand that the collective enterprise we call "government" and, by extension, the larger enterprise we call "civilization" has a greater purpose that its own mere continuation. They have the purpose of maximizing the potential achievement and happiness of every individual human being. Not some individuals. Every individual.
If we assume that human potential is more or less evenly distributed; that the rate of talent and genius per thousand people has more less always been the same, then it follows that there should more such people alive right now than ever before in human history. The talent and genius to move the human race to greater heights of peace and prosperity are here right now. So why aren't we there? Because the next Einstein might right now be hiding to preserve her life in Darfur. Because the next Salk might be working a coal face in China. Because the dog is getting tiny and we don't see it. Because the rich get richer and the poor have babies.
I realize this is an aimless rant of sorts. But I honestly do not think the changes required are all that great! I think only the slightest tip away from the selfish towards the compassionate is all that is required to unleash vast amounts of untapped human potential. A little bit more money for books than bombs. A little bit more for food than fighting. Education. Diplomacy. Birth control. Efficiency. Sustainability. A little bit of change and the tiny dog can be the resurgence of pollinating insects instead of the decline. The food and water instead of the genocide. The negotiated settlement instead of the suicide bomber.
Just a little more consciousness (and conscience) would make such a difference. Just see the dog growing...