If I Lindsey Pfau could rule the world, I would make the following changes:
Forbid anybody or any group to ever rule the world, including myself, now and in the future until the end of time.
Yes, I would not allow me to rule the world.
The world doesn't need to be ruled. It needs to be free. It needs to do its own thing. And it would be impossible for somebody to rule the world anyway. Not only can you have no control over the actions, thoughts, and life of another person...but you can't have control over the actions, thoughts, and lives of hundreds of billions of people! And never mind people; how many times have you woken up and the rain put a damper on your day; or the sun made you smile? How can you rule the world when it is actually the world that rules you?? ... think about it ;)
Page 141 reminds me of a prompt for a high school English paper. It's trying to get me to think and be creative. It's trying to give me the opportunity to express myself and let my ideas flourish.
And so some strict high school teacher may fail me for my realistic approach to the question and say that I should use this opportunity to let my imagination flow and let my thoughts be heard.
And so, I will defend my realistic approach by saying that it goes beyond the fact that I don't think I am capable of ruling the world (for a plethora of reasons. The first being that I am blonde).
But lately I've had this new appreciation for the world.
You know that feeling when you are standing by the ocean; just looking out; waves crashing at your feet. And whether you are alone on a private beach, or at a crowded beach with little kids screaming and building sandcastles right next to you ... you can take yourself away from life for a moment and just stand there; looking out at the ocean. And you get this overwhelming feeling of everything the world has seen and been through...
Who else has stood in this very spot that you are in now? Who else has looked out at this same ocean view? Who else is looking at it right at this very moment? Who will look at it in the future? What will be here once I turn around and leave? Will the waves still crash once I turn around? Have they always done this?
Sometimes people get this feeling when they are looking at the stars too. And questions beyond the earth arise. How long ago did that light from the stars shine down on me? Are those stars even here now in real time? What else is out there?
I think these are pretty normal questions that everybody asks themselves at some point. And the funny part is...the past few weeks I've been getting the same feeling as standing by the ocean side, or looking at the stars, simply by waking up in the morning!
I wake up and feel like "Wow-another day is here. And I get to live in it." Its MY life...but I live it in this world that is shared by all of us. And none of us own it. It does its own thing. And it allows us to live in it.
So NO, I do not want anybody, including me, to rule the world. I think the world should rule us. And we should be thankful for that. Its pretty generous of the world to let us live in it =) So as a return of favors to the world, for being so generous and kind allowing us to live in the world, I officially forbid anybody from ever ruling the world from here on out!
I was at the beaches all weekend on a class trip (i'm so cool I know)... and on one of the remote islands we went to, the professor stopped to point out these big shells that were along the dune line, some even sticking halfway out of the eroding sand wall.... WELL turns out these shells, called mercenaria, change from white to black over time due to some weird amino acid in them. There were tons that were greyish and black.
ReplyDeleteTIme it takes to go from white to black? Several million years!! These shells were created by living organisms over a million years ago, buried in the sand which was under the ocean at the time, and then over the past half million years or so the oceans changed and started exposing the island and the sand and the shells. craaaaaaaaaazy.