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PITTSBURG —
"Come here boys, there ain't nothing for free"
—Jewel Kilcher, “Who Will Save Your Soul?”
Every living thing on the planet costs something. It’s one of the laws of thermodynamics, or at least I will claim it is so that I might add the sheen of science to whatever I say. Life requires energy to continue. Every dog, every cat, every spotted owl, and every dandelion is an energy losing proposition.
When we make the step into the realm of humanity, we exchange our energy for money. Every baby born has a cost. It takes money to feed them; it takes money to clothe them; it takes money to educate them.
There was a time, back during the days when we were more agricultural and growing up on the family farm was the norm, children could be turned into an asset after an investment of time. A big family--with many sons in particular--was a means of attaining prosperity. Those days are gone in the so-called advanced parts of the world. If our purpose as humans is to make money, then having kids is a bad idea: There ain’t no money in it.
Looked at in simply economic terms, taking the profit motive out of having children may have signed the death warrant for homo sapiens as a species.
Some would just as soon Man disappeared from the planet. We dirty things up. We use resources. We are not sustainable.
Well, folks, here’s the thing. Nothing is sustainable. It’s that thermodynamics thing again. Everything comes to an end.
The old Indian said, “Only the rocks live forever.”
Well, that’s true, but even the rocks will be washed into the sea.
The mountains will be worn away. The atmosphere will leach away. The last amoeba will die in just as lonely a fashion as the first was born.
The Sun will go nova and all will be burned up.
But that’s okay. That is the way it is.
In the meantime, I have a right to exist; you have a right to exist; he has a right to exist; we as a species have as much right to exist as any of the rest. I eat the cow; the worms eat me; the worms help the grass grow. It all works out kind of fair if you look at it a certain way.
"Come here boys, there ain't nothing for free"
—Jewel Kilcher, “Who Will Save Your Soul?”
Every living thing on the planet costs something. It’s one of the laws of thermodynamics, or at least I will claim it is so that I might add the sheen of science to whatever I say. Life requires energy to continue. Every dog, every cat, every spotted owl, and every dandelion is an energy losing proposition.
When we make the step into the realm of humanity, we exchange our energy for money. Every baby born has a cost. It takes money to feed them; it takes money to clothe them; it takes money to educate them.
There was a time, back during the days when we were more agricultural and growing up on the family farm was the norm, children could be turned into an asset after an investment of time. A big family--with many sons in particular--was a means of attaining prosperity. Those days are gone in the so-called advanced parts of the world. If our purpose as humans is to make money, then having kids is a bad idea: There ain’t no money in it.
Looked at in simply economic terms, taking the profit motive out of having children may have signed the death warrant for homo sapiens as a species.
Some would just as soon Man disappeared from the planet. We dirty things up. We use resources. We are not sustainable.
Well, folks, here’s the thing. Nothing is sustainable. It’s that thermodynamics thing again. Everything comes to an end.
The old Indian said, “Only the rocks live forever.”
Well, that’s true, but even the rocks will be washed into the sea.
The mountains will be worn away. The atmosphere will leach away. The last amoeba will die in just as lonely a fashion as the first was born.
The Sun will go nova and all will be burned up.
But that’s okay. That is the way it is.
In the meantime, I have a right to exist; you have a right to exist; he has a right to exist; we as a species have as much right to exist as any of the rest. I eat the cow; the worms eat me; the worms help the grass grow. It all works out kind of fair if you look at it a certain way.
But we need to do more than exist. We need to be good people. The question is, what does it mean to be good?
When I was in grad school, right before I got married, I had a roommate from Jordan named Hussein Hasennein, give or take a letter here and there. He’d lived in Jerusalem until 1948 and on the West Bank until 1967. He had a master’s degree in economics from Moscow State University. He chain-smoked and liked to sleep with the window (above MY bed) open even when it was 12 degrees outside. All of that having been said, he might’ve been the best roommate I ever had.
He was also an atheist but came at it from an Islamic point of view. He told me that making the trip to Mecca was one of the greatest things a Muslim could do, but he couldn’t make the trip as long as his “fortieth neighbor” was hungry.
Jesus, who I am sure wouldn’t’ve smoked as much, was once asked, “Who is my neighbor?” He told the story about a man from Samaria in response.
I believe that helping my neighbor whether he is my fortieth neighbor or whether I am a Samaritan has got to be a part of what it is to be a good person. I believe living a life that is in harmony with creation—in all that means—has to be a part of it too.
But we are not going to bring it in at a profit. If they leave any money on you when they put you in the ground the worms will get it because you can’t take it with you. That’s not what it’s all about.
Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, is Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Mathematics at Pittsburg State University.
