Good job, humans

A little thought I had a while back which I never got around to sharing: 

So, the world is an absolute mess of political upheaval, on the surface and behind the scenes. As humans we are brutal - neglecting the poor, the vulnerable and the environment, and attacking each other physically and emotionally every second of everyday. Violence and greed are our default settings, with anger and frustration leaking into nearly every interaction we seem to have as an existence. We breach each other’s rights, we lie and manipulate, and we refuse to end wars. Everything is chaos. Everything is shitty. All of the time.

And then – you’ll be walking down the street, and you’ll see a perfect building. It has been constructed out of carefully made stone bricks, which were quarried and shaped before being shipped and sold. It sounds crazy but - people learned how to design that building, and others learned how to build it. Each woman or man became an expert in their trade, and then the cement was mixed and the bricks were placed together so they were perfectly straight and geometrically regular. It was done so precisely, so slowly…so painstakingly carefully. It’s beautiful. We did that. Humans did that. Good job, humans!

But how incredible is it that we’re in the midst of this constant existential crisis and collectively we can’t keep control; everything is a mess. Right? We’re destroying the planet piece by piece and as we do so we’re destroying each other… and then, in the middle of all this – you have these moments of creative perfection. Where humanity has come together, forgotten the rest, and made something. They talked, they decided, they ordered, they made, and they built. And not just walls, and not just architecture – it’s everywhere. From products on the shelves in supermarkets to dance shows, there are tiny synced pieces of life which, aside from the outside perspectives, are completely brilliant.

It is like a superficial layer of order lain carefully over the chaos. A little piece of sanity to hide the screaming feelings of crazy.

 Is that not kind of sickeningly beautiful?