From the Primordial Mixture, Humanity

“We, all of us, are what happens when a primordial mixture of hydrogen and helium evolves for so long that it begins to ask where it came from.” ~Jill Tarter, co-founder of the SETI Institute, during her February 2009 TED Talk.

…and while we have evolved the highest degree of sentience among our fellow earth dwellers, we are also all connected, from the mushroom rising above the leaf litter after an overnight rain to the trees that dropped their leaves in the autumn to the birds and squirrels nested with their young on the boughs of the trees to the insects that the birds hunted to feed their nestlings to the turtle that wobbles its way through the forest toward the shoreline of a stream, to the fish and mussels and toads and algae and cattails that make the stream a home to the barefoot toddler wading in the stream with a net in her hand to catch a butterfly fluttering past on its way to the flowers that grow just beyond the ridge to the hawk that passes overhead in time to see a fish maneuver through the riffles of the stream that will be its next meal to the bacteria that outnumber our cells within our bodies and that have co-evolved with us so that we cannot live without each other to everything that has ever lived and that has ever died and will ever live and will ever die. Eternity lives within these connections.

We are sentient, but our sentience evolved within Nature and is a product of these endless connections that span all the way back to that first cell that came to life so innocently 3.7 billion years ago. We are a product of all that came before us, as is all life on Earth. We tend to separate ourselves from the rest of life, and far too many of us take for granted the tapestry that the threads of our lives are woven within. Life is so much more than just human life.

Because we have evolved into beings able to question our origins, we have a responsibility that other forms of life do not have. We are responsible for ensuring that ecosystems are are protected so that the life within them may thrive. We are responsible for treating our fellow earth dwellers with respect and compassion. We are responsible for ensuring that hunger and disease and suffering among our fellow humans is eradicated, that education and health are prioritized. We are responsible for planning a thriving future for the life that comes after us. We are responsible for governing ourselves in ways that allow for change when needed, that protect the vulnerable, that values and rewards innovation and technology. We are responsible because of the path Nature rewarded us with along a 3.7-billion-year journey.

Originally written April 29, 2021.