[Dan.Linehan]

I read some Ecclesiastes tonight and it brought some things together for me. Here's a link for anyone interested in a quick read; don't worry too much, this book is quite different than the rest of the Bible.

Bible (King James)/Ecclesiastes - Wikisource

I am blown away by the writing in this book. It all seems so.. true. And honest. Genuine even. Not exactly what I'm used to from religious doctrine.

The book basically calls the whole of Human existence completely useless. It attempts to examine how to live when no action we take can have any lasting positive impact. As it says, we're all just dust:

What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.

There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.

And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.

Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun.

For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity; yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil.

For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?

For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.

There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.

Some people might be a little horrified by this perspective. Or not, who knows. I find it therapeutic to deal with head on. Nothing else is honest. Not really.

When I first found Steve's site over two years ago it was by doing a random (?) Google search for "The Meaning of Life."

I thought this analysis of his was nothing short of brilliant: concise, logical, deductive. And I strongly agreed with Steve's final conclusion:

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I decided that the best possible life would have to lie within the realm of cooperating with evolution rather than working against it. So for me this implies two things: 1) Working to evolve myself as an individual to the highest degree possible, and 2) Working to help life itself evolve to the highest degree possible. It turns out these goals are highly compatible, since there’s a positive feedback loop between evolving yourself and evolving your environment.

Evolve. It all made sense. I set out to implement that idea in my own life. I'm intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.


But over the last two years and some roadblocks, I've came to realize that the implementation of this relies very strongly on two very subjective definitions:

• How one defines "Evolution"
• How one defines "Environment"

Sometimes I read things that just make me want to cry with frustration:

Originally Posted by The Food Revolution

• Increase in overall pesticide use since 1945: 3,300%
• Increase in overall crop losses due to insects since 1945: 20%
  
  
• Increase in the amount of pesticides applied per acre to corn since 1945: 100,000%
• Increase in corn crop losses since 1945: 400%

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

About half of the mature tropical rainforests, between 750 to 800 million hectares of the original 1.5 to 1.6 billion hectares that once graced the planet have already been felled. The devastation is already acute in South East Asia, the second of the world's great biodiversity hot spots. Most of what remains is in the Amazon basin, where the Amazon rainforest covered more than 600 million hectares, an area nearly two thirds the size of the United States. The forests are being destroyed at an ever-quickening pace. Unless significant measures are taken on a world-wide basis to preserve them, by 2030 there will only be 10% remaining with another 10% in a degraded condition. 80% will have been lost and with them the natural diversity they contain will pass away forever.

Is this evolution?

Originally Posted by The Food Revolution

• Number of people who will starve to death this year: 20,000,000
• Number of people who could be adequately fed if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10%: 100,000,000

Are these 20,000,000 people part of our environment?

According to the People's Republic of China's own evaluation, two-thirds of the 338 cities for which air-quality data are available are considered polluted-- two-thirds of them moderately or severely so. Respiratory and heart diseases related to air pollution are the leading cause of death in China. Acid rain falls on 30% of the country. China's environmental laws are among the strictest in the world, but enforcing these laws has been difficult in China. The World Health Organization has found that about 750,000 people die prematurely each year from respiratory problems in China

What about these people in China? The kids growing up sorting e-waste? We buy products from them, right?

So our they part of our environment?


And have we really evolved?

Have our ideas of evolution proven to be ethical? Are they effective? Are they net-positive?

Do our basic societal functions contribute to suffering? Or are they win-win for everyone involved?

Is it possible to be truly free? Is purchasing power higher than it used to be for the average American? Is it higher worldwide?

What happened to living off the land? Is it a basic right for everyone? Is it legal?

Are we more connected to each other? Or less? What legacy are we leaving behind? How are we taking care of the poorest citizens of our world community? Is our "evolution" helping them?

If the meaning of life is "to help life evolve," what's the best way to do that in a positive way in this day and age?

Or are we already helping life evolve no matter what, and any destruction and pollution that we create acts as a catalyst for natural selection at its finest?

What do you guys think?