Alarm

I woke up this morning, and no one seemed to be sounding an alarm. So many things seemed seriously close to disaster, and there was no alarm. Even I, so aware that so many things could have gone wrong, am not alarmed.

I am once again amazed that my body still functioned through another night of sleep. My heart still pumps, my lungs have been taking in air, the blood vessels in my brain have stayed intact. All the rogue cells of my body have been kept in check such that I have no apparent problems.

All my essential systems, any one of which could have failed or might soon fail, are apparently working. I am strangely not alarmed of the danger pending or momentarily avoided.

Today, none of us seem alarmed that the earth is spinning so fast that people at the equator are swishing along a thousand miles an hour. The earth is madly rushing around the sun at tens of thousands miles per hour. And everything goes on as normal.

All over the earth there are people who know how to make atom bombs, and could in a moment’s whim release the destructive force. There are thousands more who, given the chance, would in an instant turn that awesome power against their fellow humans.

We wake daily into an environment more hostile than the day before, aware that humans have put into motion a chain of climatic events that will make it more difficult for them to survive. I am aware that my generation has enjoyed favorable relationship with my environment, and the generation after me is already unaware of that perilous loss. I seem scarcely alarmed.

All across the earth, humans have become so numerous that they no longer live side by side without killing one another. In cities, on borders, we push up against one another, in constant peril of being killed by our neighbors.

Small groups of individuals, all around me, are constantly taking more than their fair share. They suck resources from their fellow humans, much as ants tend aphids so that they might devour their honeydew. None of us are sounding the alarm that most of us surrender the fruits of our efforts to feed the greedy appetites of the wealthy and powerful.

Each morning, like today, I have been awake for awhile and no one has sounded the alarm, not even me. Instead I sit on my pillow, fully aware of my perilous situation. I absorb it all, one breath after another. My mind is focused, energized, balanced beyond disturbance. I enter into the peril , aware but without alarm.

I sometimes wonder about this.