This Giant Space Cactus

I come here to remember, so I know where to go.

In my travels, the word 'eschatological' has been somewhat twisted to what I consider a wonderful new use for me. Typically (and semantically) associated with 'Ends' I have come to understand it as being a great word for talking about 'Divisions' and, even better, 'Begins'.

I have recently been living in a personally eschatological time. Significant change has broken in and altered my world forever - not in a sweeping and total way, but undeniably, in a way that is impossible to ignore. One fork in the crossroads has been taken, and not others.

I love you, and,

I have a need to speak truths.

These are the things all of this has ever been about, and continues to be. My understanding of how this is done is what changes, not the fundamental endeavour itself.

There is a finch in the Galapagos Islands which is extremely adapted to a local type of cactus. These birds, called scandens, or just simply 'cactus finches', use cacti in a way that is analogous to how Aboriginal inhabitants of North America used the buffalo - they do almost everything with it. They eat the seeds, they nest and hatch in it, they even mate in it. They use the spines as very simple tools to help them with tasks. The birds are so adapted to using these plants that if the plants disappeared, so would the birds.

Now, in a population sometimes numbering in the hundreds, there have been roughly a dozen birds who have done something unthinkable to the cacti: Before the next generation germinates, the finches clip the stigma to get at a bit of sweet nectar inside; a nice, easy little treat which thereafter means that plant will have no descendants. Every time one of these birds, a strong minority among the population, reaps a temporary boon from a cactus in this way, it brings its species one step closer to extinction.

Utter foolishness with resources is not solely a human behavior. I am tempted to say that the difference between us and scandens is that we know better, but the truth is, most of us don't. How can we? 'Knowing' has become such a complicated affair, and very few people are making it easier. What you know affects what you do, which can affect everyone, so guiding, curbing, or even controlling what people know is something we are very concerned about.

Scandens probably doesn't understand that no stigma = no food and no homes in the future. They don't understand how their world works on that level. Similarly, most of us have a limited understanding of our own world. We know enough to get by in current circumstances, and some of us even have a little extra here and there, but largely, we don't really know how worlds actually work. And, most of us don't really care. Caring is often rationed like water in a desert; we only care about the really important things, after all, there's only so much time in a day.

But what's really important is often determined not by knowing, but believing, by taking someone else's word for it, and then often running with it like it was our own. But if we look at what we know about believing, we might rethink some things. This will be the topic of my next entry.