Un-discovering is impossible

Monday 15th March

Those humans who are close to other people do well. Those of us close to animals, we do well too not because we are being ‘good’ but because we like to be close to where there’s most energy. Energy and the possibility of close interaction is the attraction.
Closeness generates the energy to improve our lot. Our lot is of extra special interest to everyone of us. Everyone has ambitions, humans for a whole set of particular ambitions. We accumulate qualifications and possessions, and for the accomplished, life can seem just great. But then we see the ugly side of it. We may take possession of things and that makes us greedy for more. We take possession of information which at first seems advantageous but later can become heavier than chains. Some particular items of information we’d rather not even know about – we wish we’d never expressed a desire to know … but too late. Humans can discover complexity, and they say complexity is the greatest attraction for humans and yet we can’t “undiscover” it. We can’t return to the simple life nor can we unmake the atom bomb. Likewise, once we know what happens down on the farm, we are for ever haunted by that information. All we can do is act appropriately, ban the bomb with laws, ban the animal slavery by law, acknowledge and even help the less fortunate. We can’t any longer pretend that we didn’t notice!