WE BOW TO THEE
There is
truly nothing that makes me feel smaller than nature. Walking through a redwood
forest in Northern California as a child (if you haven’t done this I highly suggest it), seeing something as
monumentally prodigious as the Grand Canyon; Even sailing in the middle of the
ocean without land in sight truly makes you realize how small and powerless (and dare I say, insignificant) we as
humans are. At the moment, I think anyone sitting on the East Coast would concur.
Watching
the coverage of Hurricane (or Super storm as it is now deemed in America) Sandy
is simply mind altering. The amount of devastation, the sheer force and power
of nature that in one fell swoop can render our human inventions and luxuries
utterly useless and obsolete. Just looking at all the beachside homes on Long
Island and New Jersey getting flooded and in some cases swept away, shows you
that in the face of human ego and intention (oh wouldn’t it be so lovely to
have a beachside view to accompany our 2.2 kids and BMW) nature doesn’t give a damn. In fact in some cases, it's a case of Sisyphus personified, like in Hurricane Alley let's say. People build. Nature destroys. Build. Destroy. You get the idea. Ah humans, we are so predictably adorable.
In fact,
there is nothing more financially crippling and sobering than a natural
disaster – as most of us have witnessed either firsthand or via the news media.
Transport shuts down, cities ground to a halt, lives are at risk. Even the mighty Wall Street
surrenders and shuts it’s doors in the face of it (but as sure as I’m standing
here, many are figuring out a way to make money from all of this).
The other
thing I can’t help but think is, is this kind of storm finally a wakeup call to all
those individuals who refuse to believe our climate is changing and accelerating
in its power and unpredictability. Will we soon find ourselves living in a time
when super-storms are no longer ‘super’ but flat out mundane? I fear there is only one answer to that, like it or not. I was talking
about this to a man this morning as the King was neck deep in a pile of wet
leaves (Surrender. A running theme in our lives) and he was saying he’d hate to
see London deal with something like a hurricane when the city can’t even handle
more than an inch of snow (despite the fact that it snows every single year).
You see, human ego…or shall I say stupidity. The human motto: If we ignore it for long enough,
it just doesn’t exist.
Sadly
Hurricane Sandy does exist. And nature will always do her best to remind us
that it is not humans that are in charge. In fact, it’s absolutely to the contrary.