Prison

Conscience is here whether we like it or not. It’s one of the essential elements of our world, like rain and sunshine. It keeps us in check. The mystery of how it all holds together, the universe and everything, may not be for us to understand. And the mechanics of it aren’t meant to be tampered with. The natural evolution of any of the bright ideas of humans, if not vetted by Nature, if not in keeping with the atmosphere Nature makes for us, eventually goes sour on us. It may be great for those who skim the profits and kudos at the beginning, not so great for the poor suckers who come afterwards, who have to mop up the damage. I
Human ideas often progress from using natural resources to exploiting them and finally becoming so dependant on them they lead us into a grim sort of self imprisonment. By taking advantage of what Nature has to offer we get carried away with our own nerve, we get cocky and it eventually unleashes forces we never intended. Here we could use an example, but there are so many examples and all of us are so familiar with them, quoting instances is superfluous. Our track record of polluting, exploiting, killing and aggression is depressing. In fact it is so corrupting that even the climate is reacting negatively to what we’ve been doing.
Specifically the main problem humans have imposed on this planet is the concept of prison. By inventing it to better take advantage of others we go on to make an inevitable prison for ourselves. It’s the imprisoning that hurts most because we’re all free beings, whether we’re a tree, a human or a mouse. The other animals haven’t taken part in this human game so it’s our society that looks so ugly. Our own (human) prison is in the form of the (human) society we’ve made. Our ‘collective consciousness’ determines how we inhabit life from birth and onwards, and we remain in the same old group-think unless we make a concerted effort to get out of it. This ‘pit’ is where most of us are and presumably from where most of us want to escape.