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Kittens do you know why the Mayan people disappeared? I’ll give you a hint. They didn’t go shopping one day, forget where they parked and then wandered off. They disappeared because they really enjoyed gold.
They Mayans weren’t exactly the fun lovable bunch that most people think they were. They loved human sacrifice, war, torture, greed, lust and sports. Their favorite sport was believed to be a form of football (soccer) mixed with volleyball where competitors gathered in a dug out arena where they would violently kick a ball across the filed over a form of net while beating each other to death. They would play for days and night at a time until there was only one competitor left standing and as a reward for his victory, they would then kill him.
The Mayans didn’t all die off in the arena or on an altar while being tortured and sacrificed. When they weren’t killing each other or being killed they extracted gold from the local indigenous rock and made jewelry.
For those of you not familiar with the highly complex working of metallurgy, here is how they did it.
They started a big fire, tossed some rocks into a pot and waited for the gold to liquefy. and release itself from the rocks. Then they took the rocks out of the pot (probably burning themselves while doing so) and kept the gold while tossing the rocks away.
Yep. That’s it. Pretty simple stuff isn’t it Kittens?
It was all very golden and lovely until it killed them and here is how it happened.
The Mayans weren’t killed by an alien attack, it was because of the fire that they needed to get gold out of the rocks.
As we all know fire requires one key component. Wood. The bigger the fire, the more wood you will need. The Mayans probably would have burned each other alive if they could have but humans do not ignite very easily unless you are Richard Pryor on a crack bender.
They cut down tress from the rolling hilled forests for their fires until there was simply no more wood. The rainy seasons came along, soil erosion tore the landscape apart and vegitation would no longer grow. That vegitation was also their food.
No soil meant no food so the Mayans buggered off.
It’s as simple as that. They pooched themselves out of exitance because they just wouldn’t leave nature the hell alone to replenish itself and thus themselves because they were greedy little punks that loved to look at shiny objects.
Does any of this sound familiar yet?
As we now know they forests and vegitation returned and if wandering around some old ruins is your idea of a nice family vacation you can go and check out the Mayans hometown without being pestered by any actually Mayans because now they mostly just hang around towns selling tourists clay snow globes. Nature sorted itself out without the pesky annoyance of humans and everything worked out just dandy, unless you were a Mayan.
This all happened thousands of years ago and not very much has changed except now we have cell phones that you can watch porn movies on and microwavable bacon wrapped funnel cake Spam burgers on a stick. We’re still just humans wandering around keeping ourselves busy killing each other for fun (not that this is a bad thing) behaving badly and gathering up as much shiny objects as our oversized over mortgaged houses will hold. If we could, humans would wipe their asses on an orphan child with a third degree burn and set fire to a basket full of puppies in trade for a new diamond encrusted monogramed celebrity endorsed salad shooter.
Thousands of years have passed and billions of people have lived and died on earth and hardly any of them have learned one single fucking lesson about the planet and our very small place on it. This is why I always root for nature and against mankind.
Simply put, it’s because humans suck.
Thankfully it isn’t much of a gamble. Inevitably nature will always win, just ask Sonny Bono. In the age old epic battle of man on skis versus a large tree, the tree always wins. Sonny 0 – Tree 1. If that reference seems a tad bit arcain, then Pompeii is also a handy reminder. People who live on a volcano better learn to run. This is why I wish there were more volcanos and all cities were built upon them.
You’d think that after a while humanity would have gotten the message and learned a thing or two.
After recently spending a couple of weeks sitting on a beach getting tanned and watching aging baby boomers lose the fight against gravity and dolphins frolicking alongside some whales and pelicans with my family, a person tends to get humbled very quickly. Not because watching folks shuffling around in knee high black socks and wing tips in shorts on a beach reminds us of our own mortality, but because when you spend an extensive amount of time listening and watching an self cleaning ocean in an un manicured environmentally protected southern chunk of gator country you tend to notice how little you mean to your surroundings.
It was an odd awakening to put it mildly that came to me on a day where I stood literally in opened mouth awe of a two thousand year old tree in the Everglades that it occurred to me I had accidentally become an environmentalist.
As one would assume a two thousand year old tree is fairly impressive. Not because it is massive (and it is) but mostly because it has endured two thousand years of hurricanes, fires, wars, lighting strikes, disease and most horrifyingly, visits from environmentalists to admire it.
Environmentalists are usually annoying enough to make an average person want to club them like a baby seal with their yoga mat and not just because they rarely see the Adrienne Barbeau through The Fog. Environmentalists claim to want to preserve nature and the planet so they do impressive things like interfere with it in every way possible. Nobody every asked the tree if it needed a hug. Chances are that unlike the people trying to hug a tree, the tree is capable of sufficient self esteem and probably doesn’t need to have it’s ego reinforced by the panderings of a stinky human in a Phish t-shirt and a soul patch. Why don’t these people every try to hug a gopher in a bad mood or a hungry pissed off vampire bat?
It’s because Steve Irwin did it one too many times and a fish killed him and then swam away to mind it’s own business.
People who claim to champion the environment do so because it makes them feel like they are helping to shape the world into a better place, but who are they doing it for? They sure aren’t doing it for any poo flinging monkeys, they are doing because they are interested in protecting THEIR environment, not THE environment.
They want to have a nice place to live and exploit. That’s all there is to it. Nothing more, nothing less and why I have accidentally become an environmentalist. It’s because after being truly humbled by the spectacle of an unmanicured natural harsh planet, and grasping a basic understanding (basic is roughly about as good as it can get because human minds are small and nature is old large and wise) that when nature is left alone it it will at best hopefully do the same to you. It’s rather like a bear that way. You will probably never be savagely mangled by a bear if you stay our its way. If you try to keep one as a pet because you want to own and exploit a bear, don’t be too surprised when it eats you.
The Mayan people raped and gutted the land to satisfy their lust for trinkets and shiny bits of metal they melted from the very bedrock they lived on and died off after they took from the land until it had nothing left to give and nothing has changed since then. We are still doing exactly the same thing and will probably be met at least partially with the same fate and that probably isn’t such a bad thing.
Humans are selfish repulsive foraging mammals who think that just because we have invented such delightful things and rituals like Pop Tarts, racial hatred and crotchless undies made out of hemp for horny eco friendly hipsters we have some sway over what the planet thinks of us. A smaller group of humans think that by attending massive arena benefit concerts performed by over earnest rock stars who travel by private Panda burning zeppelins and participate in 1k fun runs to save an endangered Jackalopes they will have an impact to make the world a better nicer place for them to live. As if they think they can reason with a fault line or distract a typhoon with their iPods and play them a little Dave Mathews to make it go away or even better, destroy somebody elses place to live.
Humans are to the planet what Nick Nolte is to a dinner party with a fully stocked bar. Rather than doing the inconceivable and learn from a group of nearly extinct people that vanished a few thousand years ago and stop using up so much of the planet so we can have more trinkets and just buy less stuff, we’re more satisfied to just make ourselves try to feel better with distractions and slogans.
Televisions, waffle makers, vibrators, Steely Dan compact discs, beer hats, removable tattoos, garage door openers, Zima, bubble gum, gold teeth, rubber dog shit, Groucho Marx glasses and turkey deep fryers all come from the earth in one form or another, and most people own at least one of not most of those items.
This is what killed off the Mayans. This is what is killing us off in short order and not even Woody Harrelson armed with a solar powered ray gun that fires good intentions is immune.
That old tree was around when the Mayans were busy ripping the still beating hearts out of each other for giggles but unlike them, the tree is still here. Frankly, I’m happier the tree is still here and they took a page from the Corey Haim big book of party tricks.
This is why I am an accidental environmentalist. I don’t need pretend solutions and if I want to feel good about the world I am luckily enough to temporarily live upon, I know where to do it. Outside watching some pelicans eat a fish and not on the Discovery channel in a La-Z-Boy with a bucket of battered creamy Ranch style jelly bean coated chilli dogs.
Nature is a pretty big screen and that never has any commercials and doesn’t try to sell you a Comfort Wipe. It’s the best show on earth if you just leave it alone and try not to make too much of a mess because we’re really only just house guests. It’s when you forget that last bit when it gets pissed off and reminds you who is boss with a nice refreshing ice age or volcanic eruption.
I just wish there was more of the latter in the places that need reminding the most.
Philly would be a good start.
