Rumbles in the Night

Sun peeping through rain clouds lit my office with spring-time longing, when I was rudely interrupted. My laptop's screen undulates as if nodding at me, giving me permission to abort the operation known as the “slow narrative train”, to pull me away from pressing matter of writing, hinting that my overseer will not yell at me, enraged that I halted my progress (as this sarcastic joke is easily glossed over, my overseer – boss -- is me and this asshole demands productivity! You know that jokes and sarcasm are only good if they need to be explained, right?) Minutes continue to pass yet the rumbling earth has yet to calm; as if angered that I've yet to describe their mammoth disturbances on this small island of Taiwan. It's in this frame, earth growling its demands, that I begin this short post.

Last night as I lay in bed, waiting for sleep to pull me into its quiet embrace, I listened to the racing of scooters, motorcycles, and cars outside my window. Accompanying those horrid unnatural sounds, gale force gusts howled through my sealed windows like sickening banshee screams. Outside, corrugated metal roofing loudly snapped within its limited scope of flexibility and unseen objects could be heard tumbling through the street. Even amongst all of this distraction, sleep was approaching until suddenly, my bed became alive with vibrations. Sourced far below, some fault-shift caused an intense wave-front. A few items crashed to the floor and, with one crescendo of a jump – Bang!-- the structural movement subsided. After this episode's finale, barking and howling dogs joining in with the existing chorus of exogenous noises, letting the neighborhood know something weird just happened. “Happy Earthquake,” I called to my brother and drifted to sleep recalling the narrative of Richter 10 .

These events are like a welcoming embrace by now. They greeted me within my first few hours of arriving in this majestic land. Just beginning our first hike in Keelung, the ground moved under my feet causing me to stumble slightly and I could hear the loud cracking of tree branches within the forest. Since earthquakes are frequent in the PNW I didn't think much about that event besides that it seemed quite large. Upon arriving at our apartment, various scattered clay pieces, once terra cotta pots, littered the floor, as if Dapple the Adorable (the Terrible?) became maliciously intent on destroying everything in the house. No, her perfect self would never do something like that, unless she desired to and, anyway, she wouldn't be punished if she did. But no, the quake caused this damage and we cleaned up the mess. A news broadcast the following day informed us of the 6.3 quake epicentered in Hualien. If we were in town that day, imagine the roller-coaster ride we would have experience. Fortunately, no buildings collapsed... this time.

Even now, after taking the time to write these lines, the quake continues to rumble along. With such sustained duration, how can I be sure this isn't a tactile / visual hallucination. Perhaps this shaking computer screen and low rumble are imaginative longings for my earthquake friends. Acknowledging that a volatile beast lives – for it is alive! – below our feet, and, literally, supports our buzzing culture as we strives for planetary dominance, is revolutionarily important.


(From this point on, it is an opinion article. Continue reading if you wish.)


As humans continue taming the world into mono-cropped functionality or eradicating anything that stands in our way, the veneration of this life-giver is misdirected towards a man in the sky. Managing to remove the standards of proof demanded of even the lowest in our culture, a thriving system continues to remove our thoughts from this obvious truth. The planet that our semi self-conscious species finds itself living on is the obvious cosmogony of choice.

These gentle, and sometimes not so gentle, quakes act as reminders, ways to inform our race that we are guests upon this floating rock. Unless we attempt suicide and destroy this wonderful life-giver, blowing it to kingdom-come, our puny race will dissolve far sooner than planet. As bombing and pillaging continues, unsustainable destruction solidifies, no it ensures, an ever decreasing longevity for our species. So, as T-Mac questioned all those years ago, should we destroy the Earth and leave its corpse behind as we fly off to the stars or do we drastically change our actions and seek to protect the only life-source known to us in this universe? Very few people will claim that that the Earth, and its resources, should not be preserved, yet our very existence today rebukes sustainable foresight. Every single day presents our species, and us individually, with the question how are we to grow, to move forward, to change status quo. The inheritors of this mess will find a much different world because of our decisions today. No single person can change the system; not I, nor you, nor them, have the power to fix this situation alone. It is a bleak outlook, one laughed at during discussions, and is glossed over as liberal / hippy propaganda (as if insinuating that conserving the planet, a.k.a. Our species' home, is a radically “progressive” (democratic party) idea). The mundane life matters of paying the bills and staying happy come first, because they are the “here-and-now” concerns. Yet, I ask the reader, are conversations regarding the need for a systemic change a circle-jerk or do they offer more? Do they, instead, offer a migration of the collective unconscious into some tangibility? Reducing, reusing, recycling, not procreating, eating vegetarian/vegan, don't solely solve the problem, although perhaps they are individual steps to help mitigate it. Yet, it seems, we omit conversation about this topic of survival because it leads to extremism, ostracizing, or upset. There is a starting point consistent amongst most people, the planet should be left for the children with plenty of opportunities for them to live a good life (perhaps even the same standard of life that their fore-fathers/mothers experienced.... hopefully better!) From there, the wagon falls off the trail and people are left divided. Such questions should be discussed for, to my mind, the attained answers suggest that the every system of modern civilization need to be radically altered; everything from the extreme inherit faults of our economic systems to the uncontrollable population explosion. How can one look at the population rate and not become worried? One can accurately assert that our staggering numbers set us apart from history and that resources will be completely depleted in the near future; that is, unless some clever person can find a way to continue providing us with energy and food until we max those capacities, like a bacteria spreading along a substance, growing and expanding until the boundary conditions reach maximum retention. Yet we are not bacteria for we are capable of destroying the competition, capable of expanding to another place, and another, until we could max out infinity while never addressing the vital question of our consciousness and the responsibility with this phenomenon. This very notion of “life sovereignty” and “freedom of action” repeats itself throughout history, no philosopher, to my knowledge, provides an adequate summation on how our species is to live while not “shitting on others.” So once again, why is this not discussed at every table around the world? It is clear that no actions that a single person performs (obviously not withstanding fictional narratives) matters one way of the others, so why be afraid of the topic. So, do we have the freedom to ruin this world, to live life without consequence, to wash our hands of the resultant; or does freedom demand ultimate responsibility, some utopia of empathy where omnipotent understanding can take place. Or do we have the freedom to realize that we are non-entities, not a player in the field of cosmic scales. But then freedom offers us the ability to believe that somehow this entire show was for our benefit. Its funny how this simple term is so elusive, and, in tern, so manipulated.

Perhaps people read this diatribe and consider me the problem, an obvious hypocrite, for I exist. I am reminded of a debate, years ago, where some illogical “opponent” (for lack of better terms) claimed that if I believe all of this then I should just kill myself. Camus' argument comes to mind! Although at this point I cannot remember if it was because I was too “depressed” if I thought this way or if my idealism should push me into suicide so that the humanity would stand a better chance of survival. Perhaps this is the flaw in my argument, for I do live, I do breathe, I do consume, yet I have the audacity to question the direction of our society. How can I be taken seriously without some panacea, for that is what people desire. “What is your solution,” I am asked, as if one easy answer existed and I that I could magically implement the cure. So, without some biblical line of bullshit, all I offer is one simple sentence, standing out on a limb for peers to criticize, “Alter the current trajectory”. There it is folks... shit's gotta change because we have a gun pointed towards our temple and the hammer is snapping forward. This change should move into radical conservation of resources, and has been called for throughout time. I recommend reading Ecotopia for a historic perspective of trajectory change written almost forty years ago. These changes could have been easily realized by now, yet nothing changed, no system alteration, and our generation has inherited the problem, and we will most likely gift it to the next generation, ad infinitum, until the end is reached without change. As I heard Carlin mention today, “Behind the mind of every cynic is an idealist.” The worst thing I can do is sell out my idealism, giving away my hopes and dreams and becoming a placid citizen. Could you imagine if I manumitted these thoughts and started to keep up with Jones', watch Idol, accept Jesus, and raise a family? If this nightmare was on the horizon, my love of writing, breathing, living, and wonder would be handed away and my soul's death would be truly realized. At this point, the Dylan that you know would be gone and simply waiting for a corporeally death.

Throughout literature, generation after generation foresee some apocalyptic end, always just around the bend. This further verifies that our collective unconscious is riddled with guilt, fear, uncertainty, and confusion. Topics like these addressed will continue being the crazed writings of some individual until said topic is brought into the open and discussed; not simply throughout the halls of university, the religious institutions spouting some inconsistent panacea written by men, thousands of years ago, or in corporate boardrooms but instead democratic freedom of discussion should expanded with peers, friends, family, and lovers. Obviously these ideas aren't easily answered since the best minds in history flail for concrete explanations. So why worry, why work up a sweat, why not discuss this at dinner tonight and, if people get heated, remind them that if they were truly correct, 50,000 years of philosophical inquiry could be solved if they documented their beliefs and revolutionized the world. A humbling thought which will hopefully reign in the certainty that people hold about their own convictions or spur them forward to help humankind with their ideas.