The late comedian George Carlin in his show ”The Planet is Fine” said:
“We’re so self-important. So self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. “Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.” And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven’t learned how to care for one another, we’re gonna save the fucking planet?”
Carlin continues, “The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles…hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages…And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet…the planet…the planet isn’t going anywhere. WE ARE!”If you think George is funny you are wrong. In his sarcastic and dark sense of humor exists a very clever and desperate plea for action. Carlin’s persuasion technique by provocation and agitation cuts us open in order to wake us up from the cozy hyperthermia sleep all of us are in. As he admits later on in the same show, “I think, to be fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat”.
“The Woman of Willendorf”, is the oldest human figurine known to the mankind. The 11-centimeter statute shows a faceless female body with out-of-proportion large breasts, big tummy and accentuated reproductive organ. This ornament that was made in Austria about 30,000 years ago is neither a representation of a typical prehistoric female body nor comparable to Roman and Greek art in which women are subject to wild fantasies. You might ask what the heck is it then? One of the strongest theories suggests that it is the symbol of Earth. Having this in mind makes it easier to understand that the large body parts strictly symbolize the concept of fertility. From Willendorf village 30,000 years ago to Las Vegas metro in 2006, we hear one voice. For thousands of years Mother Earth has provided us with an infinite amount of resources.
Despite popular belief, George Carlin was a religious man. He might not had called his god, THE God, but he assumed she has the same level of intelligence as any other religious people would assume for their gods. George’s god happened to be called Earth: “We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little Styrofoam. Maybe. A little Styrofoam. The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance”.
Molana Rumi portrayed George’s struggle with the ‘names’ beautifully in one of his stories in Masnavi-Manavi Book II:
“Four persons, a Persian, an Arab, a Turk, and a Greek, were traveling together, and received a present of a dirham. The Persian said he would buy “angur” with it, the Arab said he would buy “inab,” while the Turk and the Greek were for buying “uzum” and “astaphil” (staphyle), respectively. Now all these words mean one and the same thing, viz. “grapes;” but, owing to their ignorance of each other’s languages, they fancied they each wanted to buy something different, and accordingly a violent quarrel arose between them. At last a wise man who knew all their languages came up and explained to them that they were all wishing for one and the same thing.”
Whether we call it God or Earth or anything else, the probability of earth-like planets in a reaching distance is none. It is mathematically and physically impossible to have all the identical conditions that let life flourish on earth, to exist collectively on a planet within our reach even if one day we reach the speed of light. On the other hand, the odds of having similar planets in the entire universe that meet all the basic conditions to allow the mystery of life to carry on, is next to nothing. Some of these conditions are, perfect distance from the sun, massive magnetic poles deflecting the sun’s deadly rays, counter motion movement of a liquid core, perfect water and oxygen to nitrogen ratios in the atmosphere, perfect gravitational force, perfect spinning and orbital speeds, and the list goes on. My dear friends, this brings us to the conclusion that the Earth has out run all of her competitors and left them in dust.
From various eye-witness accounts, looking at the blue planet from the space is more than a scientific exploration, it is a religious journey. Thanks to the internet now it is easy for us to go through the same journey by looking at its fabulous photos on-line. By studying a collection of night photos from the planet, one can easily see how this beautiful home is getting smaller. It is truly the age of ‘World Village’. Sa’di’s idea from hundreds of years ago has been materialized: “The sons of Adam are limbs of each other, having been created of one essence. When the calamity of time affects one limb the other limbs cannot remain at rest. If thou hast no sympathy for the troubles of others Thou art unworthy to be called by the name of a human.”
Let’s depart from being so much obsessed with names. Let’s think about the only perfect home that we, with all of our differences, have to share. Let’s depart from insane policies of seeing the earth as an oil barrel or treasure box. Let’s not make the earth the subject of politics by the hypocritical eco-freaks who call themselves greens. Wars, consumerism, and greed are eating our planet like an apple.
