People of the Oblivious-Permissive Black Hole
I'm beginning to despise dreaming lately. They bring me nothing but stress, full of intense images and situations that make me want to never fall asleep.
I dreamt a few nights ago that I had gotten into EATM. It wasn't a modern version of the program, but back when they still had night shifts. Even some things that didn't exist; like living at the zoo, sleeping at the zoo, and having a hell week for all the new recruits. I was in charge of the Emperor Scorpions, and I had to sleep with them for a night in a wooden box attached to their enclosure. I had to keep them from stinging each other, and above all, me. I had only room to lay down, there was room above me but not enough to actually get myself into a crouching position. The box was at first empty, but slowly the Emperor Scorpions started to trickle into the box. I just spotted them with my flash light, keeping an eye on them and keeping still where they began to crawl on my legs.
I tried to not panic, and it seemed like ages. More and more kept pouring into the wooden box, I was covered in them all simply huddling on me. I was petrified. Somehow, I managed to go to sleep and next thing I knew the top of the box was being broken open with a crowbar and one of the other guys pulled me out. I came out with no stings or bites, but quite a few pinches. I was drenched in sweat already, it felt like noon the next day in a hundred degree weather. I did some more work around the facility, mostly grunt work, then went home for a lunch break for about an hour. I was extremely tired and exhausted, and only had the rest of the week to go before life would get a little bit normal.
I really wondered if I was going to make it, and if I could take more stress like that for the rest of my life.
Nothing like a good dream to completely put your confidence into question.
Yesterday, me and a few others from the internship met up with a guy from the Natural History Museum. He's the one that organizes the Bug Fair, which we were vendors for. He worked on the Monarch conservation project, still does perhaps, but works for the Museum now.
I learned some interesting things about Monarchs and an under-the-rug debate on their habits and, essentially, everything they've been famous for.
If you're not familiar, Monarchs are famous for their migratory behavior. There's several facts surrounding this to make some people speculate that the migratory behavior has only been around for 120 years. They lived on the east coast, until America began colonization and deforested some trees making room for milkweeds to grow now without the forest acting as a physical barrier to the species or the plants. They started to travel as this displacement occurred, and somehow they made it to the west coast. Even beyond that, they apparently flew across the ocean to Hawaii and some islands in Oceana, as well as Australia.
Before anybody sees this as entirely unbelievable, Monarchs are one of the most long-lived butterflies in the world, butterflies do not sleep, and can go without food for quite some time. The oceans constant up-winds from the ocean make it entirely plausible. On top of that, if somebody were to have simply shipped a butterfly to Hawaii, that would make sense. But the Monarchs in Hawaii are a bit different. They're completely white, and one researcher actually said this recessive allele for a color suppressor is linked to another that causes the migratory behavior, which also was a recessive trait. If the Monarchs were simply shipped there, their colors would have not changed. They are simply very highly adaptable.
So with this debate up in the air, or rather, under-the-rug, science is now debating if this species is even worth saving for the behavior that we initially created. Or rather, is this behavior worth conserving, by preserving the habitat they're known to migrate to? There's those who say it didn't belong there in the first place, but I say, it's stupid for us to try to conserve what was before we had an impact. Plain and simple fact, humans will always be a part of the equation. Trying to remove us from biological and ecological influence when figuring how everything affects each other is a stupid mistake. We should conserve what is here, and now, and prevent more human destruction and influence, not figure out what we are in fact not certain of. Anything to do with animals, is very subjective, and always will be subjective. Everything that is said, is never for a fact.
Even more so, just when a person thinks we're just saving a species, there's much more politics behind it all than anybody ever imagined. It's amazing how much of the field is controlled by greed. People were arguing whether or not the Palos Verdes Blue butterfly is even a species.
We're about to do DNA testing and fingerprinting with UC Davis for the species, and apparently people have come to my mentor and asked if she was afraid that they would find the PVB butterfly is not as special as we thought and was not its own species, and therefore would loose the funding.
Simply, no. We're not. But apparently other "scientists" and "conservation biologists" are with their own special "endangered" species. They simply think we're here for the money and funding. Isn't it strange, how many people does this speak for? How many people then, are purposely keeping their species endangered just to rake in the money?
But I like what my mentor said. Species are not defined by nature, they are defined by us; we give them the names. Who cares what they're called, what matters is where they are. If you really want to get into philosophy, then let's say this. What if we looked at the blue butterflies as a whole, all the subspecies together, and you would say there are a lot of them. Who cares if one in a single ecosystem goes extinct? So what then happens to the ecosystem?
I think people forget the full picture. Santa Monica Mountain cougars, what if they disappear from the region? The argument is, well it's not like they'll go extinct. That's true, if you're talking on the species level. But what happens to Santa Monica Mountains? Its ecosystem falls apart.
I think humans fail to grasp this concept, because we float around earth, belonging to no ecosystem. We ignore all the ugly species, save what we think is pretty, and care not but for our own selfish gains. Funny too, not everybody thinks alike, so therefore there would be endless debate over which species are worthy of being kept alive. Just look at the debate with the wolves, look up Roller Pigeons and ask yourself, why in the hell would somebody rather kill a hawk to save a pigeon? Selfishness. We're playing tug-of-war with species, it's a game we're probably never going to win with the current methods, if you can call them that.
The man from the museum, I agreed with most of what he spoke about. But there was one thing that struck me, he said that we conserve the world for ourselves, not for nature, because nature doesn't care who or what dies, it'll simply rebuild itself.
I guess when you personify nature into a thing, that matters. But to all the remaining creatures of an ecosystem, the missing one matters. We don't give a shit what goes extinct, it's not a big deal to us, but what of all those who depend solely on that ecosystem?
If we were really trying to keep the world for ourselves, we would have domestic cattle and humans. Why would people conserve nature if it truly was for ourselves? I don't think I've been so baffled by a concept in a long time. I have to disagree, but I can't say why I personally want to conserve nature then. In which case, I can only partly agree with the subject. But it makes us seem so selfish. If anything, I just want to see beauty in this world, a beauty not found in anything created by human hands.
The human society seems to be slipping further and further down the path to hell as days go by. I haven't been in a truly good mood since Bug Fair. Yesterday really shook me, it was really a shock to the system on many levels. It makes me wonder, what will happen in 2012. The Mayans were fascinating, their years and seasons reflected the rotation of the galaxy, not our calendars that only watch the rotation of the earth. In 2012, the 5th cycle will come to an end. Or begin, I forget, but the Mayans predicted there would be a change in world order. I wonder what this pertains to. Perhaps, maybe, so many people will finally be fed up with how things are done.
I don't believe anybody in this world is inherently evil. There's inherently evil situations though, no doubt, in this world we've created for ourselves. We can be born into it, know no different, but I think everybody is capable of good, with the exception of the clinically unsound. I started to believe that nobody outside of EATM or my internship would ever treat animals or each other right, but I know one day they will. After all, by chance, I came to be around people who think a lot like me, and hopefully will never turn into one of them. One of the biologists, scientists, spectators, who believe in nothing but money. It's unbelievable, all the people with power, are owned by their greed. All those who can make decisions and control the lives of animals and their welfare. Even more: they control the human masses.
Situations aren't entirely to blame. Even then, I see people choosing to be negative all the time. Sometimes I don't blame them, when life doesn't treat you right, why do you have to treat it any different? But in reality, this is just a hole we create ourselves, and a race we lose against ourselves. There's nothing to gain from always wallowing in self-pity, and nothing to lose from trying to take a positive spin on life.
When you have a passion for something, a will to be positive, you put yourself in the mindset to see all that is positive and receive all that is positive. Not even that; but the energy you project is what you will receive back. If you want to see the world as a negative, pessimistic place, you will only meet people who agree with you, and that really doesn't get you anywhere. I guess if all you want is people to agree with you, but in the end, nobody wants to be miserable, and nobody just is. If you see goodness in the world and have the will to get better, you will be around revolutionized people who see and reach for change.
An interesting story, I forgot what I was watching one day, but researchers took a man in for some studies. They did some multiple-choice questions, and was placed with 3 actors in the room. On the first question, the actors all answered the question correctly, and the man got the question correct too. The next question, the actors chose an answer that was obviously wrong, and the man put something else down on his paper that was the correct answer. But when he was chosen to speak his answer, he gave the same wrong answer as the other 3.
Humans are compelled to conform, it's a biological trait from being a primate, and I believe that is the only reason we're going nowhere fast as a society. Sometimes it's useful, such as the go-green campaign, but I also don't think everybody really understands it other than just an image. It takes people willing to change, we can choose to be different and change the minds and hearts of others.
I hope one day with my own animal park, I can perhaps change the industry. Hopefully, by more than a few people, but entire generations of revolutionized thinkers. I want to change not only the industry, but all laws and regulations, and perhaps the general human mind.
There's no reason for the world to be how it is, yet we constantly allow it to be. A little motivation is all we need.
Cheers, mates.