Yesterday morning I woke earlier than usual and flicked on the TV while making breakfast; only to immediately regret my worldly brainwashed decision to allow fabricated bias media to commence my Bright’n shiny new day. I was told by an impossibly flawless newsreader that an allegedly “32 tonne” humpback whale had passed away out at sea due to foreign circumstances. This same whale had then served as a trampoline for a deranged youngster, probably being a sick cunt for the bimbo he brought with him on his mate’s boat trip. After the whale’s carcass had been violated by this stupid man, its (his/her??) body washed up on Brighton beach right down the road from where I live, before being dragged along the shoreline by the tide and resting on the semen-stained and syringe-disgraced sand of the infamous Scarborough beach. Due to most of the population’s disparity with the natural world which exists persistently outside of their carefully manicured homes and like-minded social circles; flocks of wide-eyed onlookers wielding iPhone cameras at the ready stood ogling this formerly magnificent rotting carcass unashamedly.

My skewed priorities including a lust for knowledge, a shameful love of gore and a protective sense of activism for animal-rights jumped into action when Ms Perfect Hair and Faultless Elocution informed me of the location where the animal finally laid to rest. After a hasty cone to calm my nerves, I hurried down to the beach to send the late whale’s soul some respectful acknowledgement of its existence before all the important people like news teams rocked up to squabble over camera positioning or reporting angles to achieve maximum ratings for their respective competing news channels. After sending all the loving vibrations I could towards the whale’s disintegrating and stinking corpse, I returned home to internally debrief my morning and reflect on the ways which my beliefs had been tested from this exposure to an inappropriately undignified death.

I came to realise that the uneasy and irrationally troubled gut feelings I was receiving might be linked to an incongruence of the whale’s starkly contrasting pre-death and post-death environments. I’m pretty certain that the environment of disrespectful post-mortem handling methods, and crude disposal efforts would be a disappointing shock to anyone who regards any living being’s passing of life as sacred and worthy of a dignified journey to wherever its purpose brings it to next (in this particular case, a purpose of satisfying its little shark friends in a loving edible sacrifice). It’s only natural.

I couldn't comprehend how something as feared and precious as a whale so easily morphed into an objectified tool for cheap entertainment – satisfying the public’s addiction to slightly contraband novelties with which we can interact, and feel powerful as we leer smugly over the lifeless remains of an unfamiliar potential threat, praising ourselves for being so brave.

When I found out that this fantasized object of media attention was to be transferred by industrial cranes into a dump truck for transportation and disposal in the tip, I almost tore my hair out. I demand to know a reason why the whale could not be securely towed out to sea and left alone where nature could be allowed to run her course and naturally evolve the whale into its next phase of existence (in this case, being a satisfying meal for sharks!!).

But alas, I will not be granted a reason, nor any answers to my clearly immature and silly concerns. Because then the people in charge of these such decisions would be subjected to public awareness of the irrelevance of their role in these projects. It may initially appear helpful or honorable; ‘removing’ the confronting ‘carcass’ away from the ‘concerned public’ in order to ‘clean up’ our beaches (note the language – is it emotive/does it create persuasive connotations with which to guide a reader’s moral obligations in accordance with the media’s purpose of winning the public’s trust?).

Isn't humankind funny, how we feel the need to assert dominance over every aspect of this pale blue dot we were given to look after and take care of? We’re not satisfied until we can reign supreme; conquering anything that has the potential to have a life of it’s own, terrorizing every living thing by systematically destroying their environment and survival resources, taming all wilderness out of wild places and things that were never meant to be tamed.

I’d prefer to follow priorities of coexistence and respectful collaboration between all things natural and all things man-made, rather than playing these destructive games of such a global scale. These inhumane (which is a hilariously ironic word in itself) games thrive off our arousal for competition and aim to give our egos flaming erections whenever mankind’s supremacy is established or ‘proven’.

Because, of course, it is entirely superfluous to feel the need to “prove” anything to Earth and its animal inhabitants… They could not give less of a shit for our hard-ons for authority! Is human logic really stooping to a philosophy of- surrender and kneel before us, or die??

Let’s just live and let live, be aware that everything we have claimed as ours was here long before us, and will be here long after us, and accept the brutally honest truth that they don’t need us. WE are the superfluous leftovers of existence, the non-essential commodities of an otherwise self-sufficient ecosystem called Earth.

Okay, maybe that was a bit harsh… But sometimes I think we need an (understandably unwelcome) reality check to break up the modern trend of everything to which we are exposed boosting our already hyped up egos by telling us we are unique, universally loved, and essential to life as we know it.

Do you want to identify yourself as a single drop in an ocean of existence or the whole ocean in a single drop?

Om mani padme hum.
May all Beings Be.

Comments