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Events such as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan have a tendency to fill the human heart with fear and dread. Few populated areas can be said to be safe from some sort of geological or atmospheric threat. Whenever they occur, no matter how remote from our location, we are reminded of the irresistible forces at play in our immovable world and imagine ourselves as victims.
Life is both a constant and elusive premise. Each being can feel their own heartbeat, knowing instinctively, in that moment, of their individual existence while the moment passes on to the next, and the next, until such moments cease. On the larger stage, players become interchangeable – life goes on, so to speak. The greater idea of existence involves the interaction of specie and the juggling act required to maintain a continual march to the next moment. In earlier times, humans and other animals migrated in order to relieve pressure on local resources. Other species, displaced by the movement, found new ground, engaged in new symbioses, or died out from a lack of purpose.
There are fewer places remaining to handle the overflow. When the white-tailed deer population on the east end of Long Island grows too large for the area to sustain, the herds are thinned through controlled hunting. Similar activities take place throughout the world. It is a question of balance from the viewpoint of scientific reasoning. Natural predators were driven to extinction, so humans must intervene to a greater degree in constricting the deer census. For the deer, it’s a period of fear and dread, a disaster as natural to them as a tornado or hurricane, resulting from similar planetary forces and aimed toward the ultimate goal of system balancing.
Wars among peoples fall under the category of natural disaster when root causes are uncovered. Whatever triggered the fight, the surrounding conditions usually involve some element of nature, from the distribution of resources such as water, food, precious metals or fuel to differences in racial appearance and predisposition. War is the ultimate herd thinner, its casualties appearing random at the micro scale, yet balanced in its overall net effect on the planet.
Historically, the scale of warfare inversely reflects other planetary conditions. In times of minor natural duress, when the planet is inflicting mere discomforts in certain regions, wars tend to involve large groups of combatants and heavy losses. Conversely, when the planet is angry and expressing itself through a large human toll, any fights, along with the overall body counts, grow smaller. The cause and effect may be argued, but the results are consistent in that the momentary pressure resulting from overpopulation finds some proportionate relief.
Forests burn in order to allow new growth. Mud slides, storms fly and mountains rise through a confluence of seemingly unrelated events, yet the planet continues to operate as a perpetuator of life. There is no precaution sufficient to override the requirement for planetary balance, no wall high enough to stem the tide, no root cellar deep enough to avoid the effect of a furious wind. There can be no moment when the plague on our house is totally absent.
During the outset of the disaster in Japan, CNBC interviewed countless economic experts regarding the possible effects on business. Each talking head, without exception, began (often clumsily) by stating sympathy and condolences for the human suffering involved before proceeding into the analytics of the situation. The exhibition proved a reminder of the emptiness possible from the formation of words and the deeper meaning of the fear that punctuates the sentence.
We are each dispensable as individuals, hosts only to our personal thoughts and fuel for the larger engine. This is not a pleasant idea, in which we are mostly helpless to prevent the consumption of ourselves and our loved ones to stoke the perpetual flame. When we offer sympathy for those injured, we do so in thanks for being spared. When we mourn the dead, we also mourn a demise that lay ahead.
