I was watching television this morning (halogentv.com if you care) and on a commercial break there was an advertisement that struck me. It was Bono from U2 talking about how the current generation wants to do something to be remembered by. The reason it struck me is it seemed to ring true that the main reason people do things is to be remembered and not just because they are the right thing to do which seems selfish.
Sometimes, probably most times, it feels good to do something because it is right, or because it helps someone else. But, is there still a selfish aspect to this? I suspect it is so.
Will our selfishness wipe us out as a civilization? I don't think we'd be so selfsish as to do that knowingly. If things got bad enough we would band together to survive. But even that would have gone too far. Is survival the end game? Are we willing to sacrifice what we have, what was here before us?
While people for the most part probably agree that climate change is real, and human technology has had an impact, are they willing to be unselfish enough to do things during their lifetime to minimize the impact and not just because it is en vogue?
What if we consummed less? Will making less of an impact today make enough of an impact tomorrow? This generation will never know the damage it has done and many don't think of the impact we have made in the last 3000 years as damage at all, but consider it progress. Ultimately I fear it may be 1 step forward and 2 steps back.
Will we survive? I think so. What legacy will we leave behind? Is our concern over our legacy the only thing that will drive us to do the right thing? Or will it even motivate us at all?
If we are waiting for our legacy worries to kick in, we may be waiting for an event that never comes.
In 100 years, all the people here now will be no more and the world will be totally repopulated. Let us ask ourselves what we can do for them. Not because we care what they will think about what we did or didn't do, but because it is the right thing to do.
