Evil likes company
By Stanley Collymore
I do love to be at the seaside, taking in and massively
enjoying the vagaries of the sea or the open ocean,
dependent in which part of the world I happen
to be in. But characteristically, and without
exception, I do passionately detest the
unwarranted intrusion of others who calculatingly
couldn’t care less about the invasion of privacy
that they selfishly and arrogantly cause to
people like me. And who by their loud
and persistent noise, either through
mindless chatter on their mobile
phones, or else in completely
inconsequential diatribes
with each other which
they and only they can decipher, intensify
this tangibly devastating incursion of
theirs by wilfully despoiling often
pristine and attractive locations
they come across with their
filthy clutter of carelessly
abandoned and horribly
unprepossessing litter.
Which, self-evidently, to them doesn’t matter a jot whether
it’s recyclable or not, nor, come to that, the catastrophic
harm that will needlessly be occasioned by them to
various and highly vulnerable marine creatures
who for millennium after millennium have constantly,
and prior to the arrival of Homo sapiens, not only
in concert with Nature inhabited as well as
productively utilized the land surfaces
and atmospheric regions of Planet
Earth itself but correspondingly
too its seas and vast oceans.
So please, urgently stop for once and seriously consider
what it is that you’re senselessly doing to vulnerably
exposed communities or perceptive individuals
like me, but equally so and specifically as
well myriads of marine creatures that,
in normal circumstances, happily
inhabit the earth’s oceans, land-based waterways
and seas; and which in millennia terms have
a much more conclusive right to be here
on this earth than either you or me.
Since their ongoing presence
amongst us, respectively,
immensely predates our own comparatively
recent appearance on earth historically.
And they have existed this long in
their particular environments
because they’ve skilfully
learnt to sensibly and
rather realistically
adjust to them.
And have never endeavoured to radically
change or even mindlessly destroy
existing ones, as is so visibly
routine with ostensibly
know-all Homo
sapiens.
© Stanley V. Collymore
29 September 2019.
Author’s Comments:
I’ve never thought at any past stage in my life, nor will I ever be persuaded to think so far less actually believe that as human beings we are essentially and, furthermore, inescapably who we are and must therefore forever remain that way. A direct consequence, as it were, of the strict preordination of our personal and seemingly irreversible circumstances explicitly determined by our own respective birth.
Categorically, it’s a notion I don’t buy; nor will I ever be tempted to do so. However, you’re perfectly at liberty to do so in respect of yourself if you choose to do so.
None the less, what I confidently know and earnestly believe is that we’re all of us supposedly human beings personally endowed with the capability, either for better or worse, to essentially and even fundamentally change who and what we are. And in doing so must also realistically equip ourselves with both the requisite common sense as well as the necessary courage to boldly take and fully accept total responsibility not only for our individual but also our collective actions.
Not only in relation to how such activities affect us personally or each other in the communities that we either live in or are individually familiar with but also the wider world generally, both in terms of the various life forms – animals as well as plants – plus inorganic structures like evolved landscapes and other formations, and most particularly so the live inhabitants of our waterways, seas and oceans. And significantly in such calculations doing so not exclusively, or even simply, from the narrow perspective born of the arrogant and narcissistic demands of us Homo sapiens.
Which seriously prompts this plausible question. Would any other earthly species reasonably relish trading places with us human beings?
