The Cancer of the Earth

In 2004, not long after the 9/11 incident, I was a mere, fifteen years old. I live in Oregon, but I had just completed a two week visit to my grandmother, my aunt, and all three of my sisters, in the central U.S. They all live in the state that is nicknamed, 'The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes,' A.K.A, Minnesota. Minnesota, actually contains over 13,000 lakes. It has a state water bird, called a loon. Here is a picture of a loon, for @riverflows:

loon image from twincities.com

Here, also are a bunch of loon noises that I was able to learn over the 8 years that I lived in that state:

Earlier today, I posted something about Oregon's new ban on plastic bags. My friend, @galenkp, responded to the post, telling me that he had just watched a 'doco' (apparently Australian for a documentary, not beer). The 'doco', he said, was about plastic in our oceans, killing whales. This is quite obviously tragic. He went on to make mention of the detrimental effects that we, as humans, have as a whole to our planet.

This brings me back to my flight home, at fifteen, from Minnesota. I boarded the plane that would fly me from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to the city of Portland, Oregon. This would be the longest flight of my journey. A glorified puddle-jumper would take me from Portland and deliver me home.

My favorite part of flying, has always been take off. I like speed. This may be how I totaled my Mazda 3, sailing off the side of a cliff when I was twenty. I lost traction on a corner, going 85 MPH, flipped a 180 degree turn and sailed off the river road. I got very lucky, but that is a story for a different time.

"If you ain't first, yer' last, Ricky Bobby!" -Taledega Nights.'

I got aboard the plane, took my seat. It was dark outside and I felt my hair stand up as I waited, anxiously to hear the pilot speak. As the enormous 757 pulled onto the airstrip, my heart-rate increased. The sound of the jet engines, roaring louder now. The pilot hit the throttle and we began speeding down the runway. As always, an uncontrolled, enormous and dorky smile spread across my face. A couple people screamed, and though I tried hard not to, I laughed.

It was just as exhilarating as it always has been for me. I was fortunate enough to be seated next to the small porthole window. As we lifted off the ground and began to rise over the city, I looked down at the Minneapolis lights. Smaller and smaller they got, until I could see the perimeters of the city.

I had a memory of my Biology class. The memory, was contained in a petri-dish. Now the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, was in my mind's petri-dish. My first observation was that, whatever this was, spreading across the surface of the planet, was growing. I began first to think of the substance as spores to a mushroom. The problem was, when I tried to compare the functions of the human race, to the functions of a mushroom, their were some inconsistencies that I could not possibly ignore.

Mushrooms, feed on what is dead. They eat up dead cells as they decay, and the proverbial mushroom 'shit' product, is actually good for the plant-life in the environment.

Humans, don't just eat what is dead. They kill, then they eat, and they kill some more. They produce all kinds of toxins that are bad for the environment. They keep copying themselves like a mushroom spore, yet what we 'shit' out, is not good for what is around us. We are killing our environment and creating copies of ourselves. "What does this make the human race?" I asked myself. The answer:

The cancer of the fucking earth.

I came up with this theory when I was fifteen. When I was nineteen, I heard a radio talk show in which Mr. Joe Rogan was being interviewed. During the interview, he talked about DMT, a naturally produced hallucinogen that is now, sometimes used as a recreational drug. During the interview, there is a portion in which he talks about having almost an identical experience. I, of course, flipped out and started telling the friend, that I was visiting with, about the experience that I had when I was fifteen.

The good news. I was fifteen when I had this thought. I am thirty now and I still haven't killed myself. Clearly I have hope. Hope is good, hope combined with action equals faith-realized. If human philosophy was a hybrid between the paradigms of dreamers and realists, we might be sitting pretty good. I'm sure that mother earth would appreciate it.

So save Free Willy and Spongebob! Fuck plastic bags! (I think we should probably keep making condoms though). One last thing, I LOVE STEEM!

-Article by Jonathan Caleb Williams

city lights image at top from u/yesitsmax, reddit.com