Past the Tipping Point

Beyond understanding how small and fragile a world we live in and how tenuous and questionable our survival realizing the reality puts many things in context. Ask any survivor of cancer. As with the moon landing, this realization can serve as a paradigm shift in our consciousness: in how we see ourselves and each other. Let's face it, national loyalties, partisan conflicts, cultural differences, class struggles and military competitions all seem irrelevant in the face of extinction.

Rather than becoming depressed about the state of the planet and our odds, we can savor what we have while we have it. Maybe it will help us to realize that we are all more than family. We, and all the living creatures on earth, are cells in the larger organism of our small living planet's biosphere. Like the cells in our body, cooperation is vital to survival. We are truly one. All we have in the universe is each other. In realizing that oneness, we can live fuller lives with compassion and authenticity. We can honestly and openly be ourselves shedding those phoney pretenses donned for the sake of careers or social acceptance. In doing so, we can find personal peace and we may even reach some kind of enlightenment that vindicates our existence and makes the human experiment somehow worth the effort.