I could not resist the overnight in Moab, Utah on the return of my voyage to the edge of the great plains. I had spent the morning traversing the rockies, eyes taking their fill of the mountains of rock, the golden aspens streaking the sides of mountains and had descended into the great Utah plateau. Dry land expanded as far as my eyes could see, a plateaued mountain range off in the distance stood under a thin line of glass table top clouds. My road was a ribbon of black electrical tape, stretched across the land.
I turned south and in a short time, was surrounded by red rock cliffs, arches, gorgeous jagged plateaus bathed in the glow of late afternoon. My legs ached from driving, so I went in search of hiking and found it in the nearby National Park. As I drove that ribbon road, I was reminded of the first time I saw this land. Prehistoric. Unreal. It was just as gorgeous.
I found myself on a short hike through walls of rock. The ground was moist from the morning dew. The air still cool, and birds flitted and swooped. I stopped to watch one, perched in the top of a pine. His blue contrasted with the dark green tree and orange-red rocks. The bird was lean and perfectly proportioned. I thought of Wallstreet's greed. What would those people look like metaphorically transformed into a similar bird? I thought of something, a professor had said the previous day. About the end of the world, and resilience being more important than sustainability in the short run. He's right, of course. My mind wandered to alternate scenarios of the future riffing off one of my favorites: Logan's Run. (A financial logan's run, whereas after you have made $N (500k?) you must die.)
I'm worried for Americans. We do not seem to be as resilient as we used to be. But then I look at the world, the animals, people in third world developing nations, and that's where the resilience is. I have no fear for humanity, the earth. True, we are fragile. We have lived in harsher times, in harsher conditions. From those harsh mines, machines were forged, electricity discovered and an improved quality of life. But Americans have become like fat Gods. They/We/I have forgotten the harsh times, the hard labor and the difficulty of manifesting an idea in our world. This forgetting concerns me.
There is much much more to discover. To create. We must become like the learn bird and shed our fat indolence.
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