The next step

March 16, 2020

My, my, my. Aren’t these interesting times we live in?

The president of the United States refers to the current worldwide coronavirus pandemic as a hoax, then changes his mind, even as some of his supporters continue to insist that it’s fake news. There’s panic buying of toilet paper, of all things, and store shelves are empty of those products, even though there’s no shortage of toilet paper in the manufacturing and distribution systems. Some Americans are buying even more guns out of fear that civilization as we know it will collapse, leading to a kind of Blade Runner dystopia of every man for himself.

I can’t say that I’m surprised by these developments. In fact, I’ve been expecting some form of mass chaos and disruption for a long time now. We humans have been overpopulating and trashing this planet as if there would be no price to pay for our reckless actions. And now a day of reckoning has arrived.

I didn’t know whether the upheavals I’ve anticipated would come in the form of climate change, plagues, world war, or all three. I didn’t know how, when, or where these game changers would manifest, but I knew that something had to give. We as a species cannot continue to abuse our shared planetary home and abuse each other without some kind of consequences arising from the inevitability of the law of cause and effect.

When I was in high school I learned a lesson that has stayed with me ever since. I used to mow lawns and do yardwork on weekends, and with my earnings I bought three freshwater aquariums and populated them with tropical fish from our local pet store. The tranquility of these little watery worlds was a welcome respite from family turmoil and teenage angst. But the more neon tetras, angelfish, red swordtails, gouramis, eels, guppies, and other aquatic creatures I purchased, the more varieties of them I wanted to have to enliven my tanks. I just loved the bright colors and exotic shapes of my little critters. The pet store had warned me, however, that there was a formula for how many healthy fish you could have per gallon of water, and that to exceed that formula would increase the risk of the fish disease ich (pronounced ick) in the aquarium. Undaunted, I filled my tanks with the maximum number of fish allowable, and enjoyed the serenity and beauty of the animated environments that I had created.

Until disaster struck. First one, then another, then another of my little friends got the telltale white spots of ich on their bodies. The pet store sold me liquid blue ich medicine to treat the tanks, but it was too late: eventually all of my prized fish succumbed to the contagious disease. Devastated at the loss of my tiny charges, I cleaned out the aquariums.

And then, motivated by greed to have even more diversity in my tanks, I started all over. I mowed more lawns, raked more leaves, and pulled more weeds for twenty five cents an hour. Then I bought more fish and once again filled my aquariums with the maximum number of fish. And then one of them got ich and…well, you know what happened next.

I still love variety in fish, and people, but now I know that it is not wise to have too much of anything. Balance and harmony are preferable to an excess of abundance. And we have an excess of people on our Earth.

I’m curious to see where we humans will go from here. I expect more pandemics in the coming years, more wars, more climate change, and more political and economic turmoil, until such time as we bring our population down to more sustainable numbers. In the meantime, I wonder what it will take for us to evolve to the point where we learn to treat each other and different life forms with respect. What is the next step in our evolution as a species?

Whatever else this coronavirus may be, I hope it serves as a wakeup call for a re-imagination of our relationship with our planet.

We may lose many lives in this pandemic. A reduction in the human population would be a welcome development in my view, though paradoxically I don’t want anyone to suffer or die. And though I’m fit and healthy, there’s always the possibility that I’ll be one of those who gets corona ich and transitions up to the great fish tank in the sky. But if so, that’s OK. At least I won’t need toilet paper in the celestial aquarium.