04 Jul Spoiler Alert: There’s Too Many People

Look, let’s not beat around the berry bush. The sum of causes for the situation we’re in can be boiled down to 3 attributing factors… 1. People are more selfish than ever. 2. Money matters more than anything else to a significant portion of the population. 3. There’s too many damn people for the planet to support. Yeah, I said it.

The Stupidest Assumption Ever

Who the hell thought the planet could realistically support 8 billion people without consequences?? The resources on our planet are finite, not infinite; yet for some reason people seem to think we can keep growing and the resources to support our level of growth would magically appear.

The situation all goes back to the agricultural revolution. In this revolution, we went from nomadic tribes to sedentary communities. By planting our own food, we were able to produce a surplus and store food for rough times, which allowed us to create our own surplus in the form of more people. Instead of moving from location to location as the resources dried up to allow that location to recover and replenish, we just keep pushing for more until that ecosystem can no longer recover. We produce too many people for what an area can sustain and force that ecosystem out of balance. An inevitable collapse is what happens when we cross this threshold, and there’s no turning back once we do. Kinda like what’s happening with the climate right now.

Who Goes First?

Now before you say “Well what are you going to do, kill a bunch of people?”. No, nature is already on its way to do that for us. No matter what you do, nature will always balance itself. So when a species’ population grows beyond what nature can support, it usually culls that species in the form of some type of disaster. Famine, drought and desertification, disease; it’s a natural built in safeguard to prevent imbalance from a species that is out of control. We are such a species.

So what should we do? For starters, maybe consider that we can’t live without our environment, earth. Maybe lay off the constant wants for luxury we don’t need. Maybe learn to live in balance with nature instead of constantly taking from it and giving nothing back. Maybe try not being a selfish f-k. Every other species on this planet lives in balance and harmony with its environment except us. And we wonder how we got here.

Not Good Enough

We got here by wanting more than what we had. We had an environment that provided us food, shelter, water, fire, and air to breathe. Did it guarantee everyone would survive or be ultra comfortable? No, that is unrealistic and would yet again upset the balance of nature. It may not have provided all that we wanted, but it provided all of what we needed. Yet humans wanted more (in typical fashion), and we were willing to destroy our environment and everything in it to get it.

I think one of the easiest solutions that can be applied immediately is to learn to live with less. I’m a minimalist and I live as such; I find it gives me more peace. I keep only the bare necessities, the rest I don’t need. Your perspective shifts when you do this from lots of distractions to hide your unhappiness with the world, to being appreciative of the small things. Being grateful for what you do have. Gratitude is like magical pixie dust for your perspective and I take a hit of it daily.

More Stuff Please

The reality is that maybe you don’t need that 2nd or 3rd car. Maybe you don’t need a vacation home in some location that you don’t contribute to the well being of. Maybe you don’t need the latest technological gadget that you’re just going to use as an escape and avoidance tactic. Maybe you don’t need to get everything that you see everyone else has. Human’s insatiable appetite for more is driving the charge for taking everything we can at the expense of our very survival as a species. If that’s not the definition of stupid, I don’t know what is.

I once lived in the woods with my only possessions being a backpack and a tent (long story), and that was one of happiest times of my life. It was then that I learned that living with less gives you peace. Not having those “things” that people work a job for provided me with true freedom. The very freedom those same people work long hours to achieve, oblivious to the fact that money can’t buy that type of freedom. It comes from within; it comes from a perspective of being grateful for what you have and learning to live with less.

Adulting Is Hard AF

Now for some hard truth in the usual GI SAID IT fashion; either you learn to live with less, or with the direction the world is headed, you will be forced to one way or the other. The times of infinite abundance are over, mainly because it was never a reality to begin with. This is the time we go from fruitless endeavors like keeping up with the Jones’s, to learning to survive our current situation. It’s time for humanity to grow up and do what it needs to do instead of what it wants to do. Welcome to being an adult, adulting is hard AF.

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