In our office we have two mothers, there is also me (not a mother but would like to be in a year’s time or so) and one anti-mother. This is the person who, when I spoke to one colleague about wanting to start a family with the Sous Chef said, “oh, so you’ve joined the breeders, then”.
There are multiple reasons not to want to have children. People might feel they would not make a good enough parent (how ironic that to have had this thought in the first place means you’d probably be good enough – it’s the ones who never even considered this important who really are the bad parents). Another reason might be that they worry it would affect their quality of life adversely (again, a considered and honest reason. They are also probably right that it will, initially. If you don’t think you want to do it, don’t). Old anti-mother however used to old chestnut: I think the world is already overpopulated. I’m not going to add to the problem.
Oh, the altruism. What a saint this person is. I am sure her efforts really will save the planet.
The planet is very heavily populated with people. A plague, practically. We should all feel guilty for being here. We’re destroying the place. We are a bad bad bad species. So I ask: are we?
When a patch of lichen grows on a tombstone, it gets bigger and bigger and starts to cover it and destroys the stone underneath. Should that lichen really feel guilty for its existence? It’s just being lichen. It is being and doing only what a being does. As human beings, we are just being human and living as humans, doing as humans do and continuing on in a way to ensure humans will continue to be. We are living beings and that is what living beings (from bacteria to elephants) do. Life, in all its forms, be it single celled or complex, is something which will always find a way. It is ridiculous that one (or a group or a species) of organisms imbued with this thing called life, should feel guilty or wrong for existing with it. We do not have life. Life has us.
This takes me to: What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? My answer to those two questions is very similar: the meaning of life is to continue life and we are here in order to continue life. We are here to fulfill the meaning of life. Procreation is part of that, but you do not have to procreate in order to fulfill the meaning of life. Just living has done that. Just being born did that. Just affecting the procreating living beings (and not just of your species) did that. A bigger contribution would be to continue life more directly. I was born human, so I can only produce another human. I can support a puppy but I can only make a human.
When a volcano erupts, its lava flowing down the sides, destroying all living things: plant life, animal life, everything is destroyed. We can see the scars left behind when the magma cools and only dead rock remains. We lament the destruction of life. Oh what a disaster this was to all the living inhabitants of that mountainside. But go back 20 years later and you see life returns. Plants, small animals, little things, eking out a living somehow. Life, wonderful life, the miracle that is life fights and finds a way. When we see life returning to the destroyed volcano, we’re glad. There is something about life that seems to, given even a quarter of a chance, rebuild itself and carry on. Changed in its forms, of course, but life nonetheless. And that is the point.
So why do we claim for ourselves the arrogant idea that we should or shouldn’t be here in our numbers? Who are we to decide that? We are not all that different to a patch of lichen and are harbouring ideas far above our station if we think we have control over it or can judge it through a moral lense.
All living things, by the ebb and flow of evolution, are driven to carry on this thing called life. We pass the baton, from one generation to the next. When the times are good and conditions are right, a species will flourish. When the numbers cannot be maintained, competition grows and numbers reduce. Evolution is driven by the boom and bust. The easy days (or years, or millenia) of a boom allow a wide variety of exemplars to be born and a genetic variation here, a mutation there is not much of a burden or disadvantage. Genetic variety is high. So what if you have bumps on your back? You might have big bumps, or small bumps. You might have movable bumps or bumps that stick out quite far, or both. Nearly everyone gets to live and breed and bumps don’t stand in anyone’s way. Then comes the bust, competition is high, large sections of living things cannot make it. But there is enormous variety now. Some of the varieties, for a myriad of reasons, survive. Some varieties, even if similar, do not. The one with two big movable bumps survives. The one with a no bumps at all survives. For some reason, the middle sized bumps don’t make it. Repeat this and you might someday have something akin to wings, as long as those bumps were a bit useful somehow during the harsh times.
All this change only happens because of the boom. Life must always make hay while the sun shines. If it didn’t, it would be too weak to survive the disasters. Even if we humans are overpopulating the planet, even if we are heading for some sort of massive correction in the numbers of our species, which will undoubtedly cause suffering for large numbers of our kind in the future, it is unpreventable. It is lunacy to try to consciously stop something which life does, has always done and always will do. Our best bet is to add our drop in the ocean. Do what we, as a living being, are destined to do. We do not have life. Life has us. You place your bet on the roulette wheel, give it a spin, and die. That’s your part and them’s the rules.
