Black vs. White and Other Tales from the Toaster

If the planet’s age, at 4.5 billion years, were put into terms of a 24 hour clock, all of human (homo sapien) existence has occurred roughly in the last 2.88 seconds. In other words, figure that the earth’s ‘party’ started at 12:00:00 AM, we arrived late at 11:57:05 PM that same day, and in those nearly three seconds we have infested the joint and set the course, as I see it, for humanity’s natural exit. This makes us no better, or worse, than 99.99% of all other living creatures that have come and gone in 4.5 billion years.

Humans conflict by nature. Some might say that conflict is the essence of our advancement and to-be short-lived dominion. All the while, we search for leverage to dismantle our tendency to fight with each other. 'Do this, do that, shut your mouth, get out of my face!' But, we continue to lose the war for peace. North fights south, black fights white, Jew fights Muslim, male fights female, young fights old, and so on. Perhaps the fighting is inevitable.

The conflict goes farther than just with humanity. We conflict outside ourselves, with nature. We conflict inside ourselves, about who we are and why we are here. Finally, we conflict with the unseen, the God that we believe created us. We assert and immediately defy Godly rules. Challenging our natural tendency, or need, to conflict is our ultimate battle, and if we ever win, it just might be our unique undoing. But we won’t win, and our status quo undoing is our back-up plan.

To err is certainly human, and forgiveness may be divine, but conflict floats our boat. Without it we are toast. With it, we are also toast. So I guess what I’m saying is that the earth will live on, until the universe un-big-bang’s itself, but humanity is toast. Personally, I’m agnostic about toast. So, you live the moment in the toaster, with your favorite spreadable waiting, knowing that when it’s gone, it’s gone. And that will be OK.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled conflicts…

James C. Collier

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