Humanity's Transience

Humanity is vain in the extreme. I am confident that most people would concede this point, we are by nature creatures that seek the approval of others. In our obsession for attention comes the need to be remembered forever. It is the driving force behind most of what motivates us and has been for centuries. Immortality, cheating death, can only happen in the memories of our ancestors. As of right now there is no other way to cheat death. The mediums in which we achieve this immortality is through many things but as a race and not an individual it appears in the structures we build. The skyscrapers that define the skylines of our cities, statues and fountains that distinguish many of the cities in Europe, the pyramids, all of these things are reminders of what has been done and what we (humanity) are capable of. The interesting thing to me is that even these great structures will disappear. The pyramids that the Mayans built are nearly swallowed by the rain forest. The Pyramids of Giza are crumbling and will soon be surrounded by the city of Cairo. Eventually, as is our nature, we will leave such a stamp that it imprints itself over our past and only the present can be seen.

In the tunnels of Badger's home he tells Mole that the passages are part of the ruins of a human settlement and how at the time, "They were a powerful people, and rich, and great builders. They built to last, for they thought their city would last for ever." he goes on to say, "...they go. It is their way. But we remain. There were badgers here, I've been told, long before...now there are badgers here again." These sentiments are the absolute truth. We as humans will be survived by the animals of this world. They are far more adaptable and far less fragile, and after we disappear Nature will reclaim what is hers and we will be lost forever. I thought this to be a cleverly concealed but massively important epiphany. It was such a simple statement but when it is couple with the events of Ch. 7 we see that it is the inevitable future of our world. The thought that we could completely destroy the environment to the point that life would cease is impossible. If "it" kills us it does not mean it will kill everything. The cliche is that cockroaches will inherit our desiccated world. The realization that in the end the achievements we have on this world will mean nothing because there will be no one to remember us is a cynical one but "all is vanity."

My whole cynical tirade is in the event that we all die. It could, and as a SciFi geek, I hope be because we have discovered other worlds to colonize or they found us, which is a different tack all together. The point is that in the end those weeds that we try so hard to eradicate from our lawns and gardens will be the first to enter our homes and structures, and those vines will topple all the skyscrapers of our world just as easily as C4. If far more slowly.