Examining modern insanity

 A boy pulls a suitcase past debris in a flash-flood damaged area in Derna, eastern Libya, on September 11, 2023. Flash floods in eastern Libya killed more than 2,300 people in the Mediterranean coastal city of Derna alone, the emergency services of the Tripoli-based government said on 12 September - AFP

What is wrong with our preoccupation for the comfortable modern lifestyle is that we have failed to see that we have bypassed the thousands of indigenous routes for truly sustainable living, good health and happiness and through this blindness sickened the earth and man, putting the future of the planet into the brink of annihilation.

By Surya Vishwa

On Friday, 8 September, the earth quaked to a magnitude of 6.8 in Morocco, killing over 3,000 persons and in the same global region, of North Africa, on  Sunday, 10 September the coastal city of Derna in Libya was drenched, consuming in death over 11,500 humans in the worst ever floods recorded in recent history. Hundreds of thousands of families are displaced and the cost to those economies in terms of destroyed buildings and businesses is debilitating.   

The impact on humans through such tragedies can be calculated, but the death toll to the earth from man’s actions can never be calculated. It’s as vast as the sea. This Thursday’s lament originated in the depths of the earth’s bowels at 18.5 km below the surface. The epicentre of the quake is now confirmed to be the High Atlas Mountains south west to the city of Marrakesh. The tremors of the earth quaking was felt up to Portugal and Algeria proving just how badly the spine of our planet has been crippled by man, despite the serious warnings sounded by the sane few of this world such as the indigenous Kogi community.

The Kogi – the indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains in northern Colombia who take seriously the duty they have inherited from thousands of generations to protect mother earth, came out of their isolation twice in the past four decades to warn the world of unprecedented calamity if man does not mend his ways.

In 1989 and 2012, they conveyed in two documentaries by BBC film maker Alan Ereira the warnings sounded by the Kogi tribe (meaning the sun in Kogi language) was for modern man, described by them as ‘Younger Brother’ not to destroy this earth anymore. The Kogi tried to explain to modern man about the ‘Aluna’ or the consciousness or the mind of the ‘Great Mother,’ who they consider the force behind all of creation and sustenance. They tried to explain that ad hoc and avarice based concretisation and the rape of forests would eliminate the bio diversity that keeps the earth and human in good health.

Modern man ignores the call for common sense

Yet, modern man keeps on ignoring the call for common sense and is not moved by the shudders of the dying earth as it drags humans into that abyss merely reported as ‘quakes’ or ‘landslides.’

 The earth has no ‘boundaries’ and wherever in its anatomy that it feels the pain worst, it will respond.

The naming and demarcation of earth that man has done is akin to a child playing God, declaring ‘this and this and this is mine; do not come here – this is my area. This is my place. It is called this. And then the child raises flags and puts rules as to who should enter and who should not. The earth in its magnanimity feeds all and has borne the ridiculous idiocracies of its wayward children. There is however a limit to bearing up torture.

On this earth that man has mangled, no human is safe. If a disaster is happening in the other end – one sitting in the opposite corner cannot warm his hands in relief and believe that he is saved. He is not. His premature time as decreed by the earth will come. It is not safe anywhere. Man has no reason to complain.  He had not earned the right for the earth to grant him safety and security.

The earth is a just judge and beyond juvenile pettiness. Treat it right and it will reciprocate in kind. It will feed, clothe and house the human. Treat it wrong and it will create instead a premature cemetery inflicting the same pain and agony it feels. Earthquake is how the earth communicates its unbearable man made misery.

For the world to be ‘developed’ people have to develop a sound mind

For the serving of this natural retribution colour, creed, caste, wealth and  other nonsense that humans identify with is of no significance. Thereby the Earth is both the life and the tomb that serves to all as fitting.

What humans have done to this planet with their so-called purported superior intellect is being served back to man in kind. In the face of that justice man is just a piece of helpless flesh that will placate the earth as manure.

The damage to housing through both disasters would contribute to global poverty pushing back sustainable development goals for a world that is neither sustainable nor ‘developed.’ For a world to be ‘developed’ its people first have to develop a sound mind.

French volunteer doctors meet with a patient at a camp for earthquake victims in Amizmiz on 15 September 2023. The magnitude 6.8 earthquake – Morocco’s strongest ever – has killed nearly 3,000 people and injured more than 5,600 since it hit on 8 September in Al-Haouz province, south of tourist hub Marrakesh. – AFP 

The scientific inventions of the past century have pointed to a craze for speed, convenience and fancy, such as the mental retard of one time plastic. Only a mentally retarded population will use a stable plastic spoon, plate and cup once and with the same breath talk about equality and ‘sustainable development.’ The earth is inundated and tottering with this backwardly progressive scourge of modern rubbish as it is with the madness that venerates and equates concrete buildings and inane trappings with ‘development.’

Before man concretised his mind, there were thousands of ways and means used to construct beautiful, nature friendly, artistic and authentically sustainable structures. Africa was known for roundish structures made with a host of materials from nature that included rocks, mud, clay, sticks, components of particular trees and shrubs. These were seen as symbols of ‘poverty’ by the European colonists  as they did similar ancient sustainable construction expertise that existed in Sri Lanka which were dubbed as fit only for ‘temporary’ occupation at most and which earned the derision of the colonisers as to how the ‘heathen’ lived.

However, the discovery of our modern education system within the sphere of the western sciences has made man place himself on a pedestal of so-called ‘advanced mindset’ without realising the basic common sense that any innovation through the route of western science should be for the preservation of man and not its destruction.

The clay houses in Sri Lanka  with coconut palm woven roofs, and equally beautiful and solid iluk and palmyrah leaf roofing were also used as ‘wall’ structures for housing and if several layers were used in combination with wood it was as equally sheltering from rain and lasting as much as a year or more. The tradition was to renew the roofing and as needed the upgrading of the structures. This was done as part of a community endeavour where each family member in every village were seen as part of the whole and thereby everyone assisted when one house needed to be upgraded. No money was involved, no purchasing, no stress, no bank loans no suicide on being unable to pay loans and no false pride. Above all the body of the earth was not violated with the brick made hallucination of ‘permanent structures.’

Among the causes of earth based disasters are man’s brick construction, a compulsory disorder that sacrifices the earth’s wellbeing and the lives of humanity for the façade of opulence. Unfortunately, the discourse for sustainable development is led by the Western world whose very actions such as colonisation and the modern education system spearheaded by them created the moving away from genuine sustainability.

What is wrong with our preoccupation for the comfortable modern lifestyle is that we have failed to see that we have bypassed the thousands of indigenous routes for truly sustainable living, good health and happiness and through this blindness sickened the earth and man, putting the future of the planet into the brink of annihilation.

Time to change

Hence it is now time to change the rhetoric at the plush global climate change and environment protection discussions. It is time that we stopped and looked at large swathes of this earth which had people living with nature and not dictating to nature. We have brainwashed these people and made them feel that they were uneducated, poor, unscientific simpletons but it is time to recognise the foolishness of our superiority and reverse the elimination of man.

The earth cannot be eliminated. It will survive. It will survive freely and luxuriantly when it has eliminated man. No other creature on this planet is a threat, a menace and a disaster to this planet as humans are. No other creature has such a stupefied arrogance so as to play God with that new human toy ‘ modern technology without realising that this era cannot have a monopoly over this word.

Hence it is now time to change the rhetoric at the plush global climate change and environment protection discussions. It is time that we stopped and looked at large swathes of this earth which had people living with nature and not dictating to nature. We have brainwashed these people and made them feel that they were uneducated, poor, unscientific simpletons but it is time to recognise the foolishness of our superiority and reverse the elimination of man.

The word technology is a combination of two Greek words – techne and logos where techne encompasses the means of doing or gaining something – aesthetics, skill, craft; and logos means expressing what is internal through the outward following of a process. Most people use the word technology as if this generation owned it.

Today’s day and age understands technology through gadgets such as communication devices – phones, sound systems, computers etc., But the concept of technology reigned superior in the mind of ancient man who constructed and conceived multifarious methods for survival without impacting nature negatively,

This is because the ancient mind was a pure mind, raised in the sanctuary of the earth and not separated from it. The ancient schools were under trees and the sages of ancient wisdom lived, thought and healed from the shelter of nature. Therefore, to innovate upon things which would destroy nature never came upon these humans.

However, the discovery of our modern education system within the sphere of the western sciences has made man place himself on a pedestal of so-called ‘advanced mindset’ without realising the basic common sense that any innovation through the route of western science should be for the preservation of man and not its destruction.

Surely the basic technological premise of the innovation of plastic can be used using grass or any other leaf. Surely the ancient forms of constructing housing using pure nature as described above could be re-introduced once again, with a little modern variation if need be? Would that not be technological, if the exact meaning of the word ‘technology’ is to be understood?

Would these not contribute to easing the human burden on our mother the earth and save us from her deadly wrath and anguish? Why then are we not taking this discourse to our schools and universities? Why then are we not considering these arguments in our national discourse for the much hackneyed term – ‘education reforms.’

https://www.ft.lk/harmony_page/A-glimpse-into-the-message-of-the-Kogi-indigenous-tribe-protectors-of-the-Great-Mother-the-Earth/10523-700595

 https://www.ft.lk/harmony_page/Following-the-Kogi-footsteps-to-be-protectors-of-this-earth/10523-700891