In the 4 billion or so years since our planet Earth was formed, the sun has increased its temperature output such that rationally we might expect that we should be experiencing a lot more “global warming” than in fact we do. Could it be that Earth is adaptable to global warming and to “climate change,” and it finds its own equilibrium that can and does sustain the stronger and/or the luckier among us despite ourselves? If this concept is part of the prevailing wisdom behind life, death, and spirituality, as well as to geology, geometry, and several other “ology’s,” then maybe we fret too much about the intermediate consequences such as grieving too much over those who die from floods, and famines, and fires; earthquakes, hurricanes, and assorted viruses; even those who lose their balance and fall from high places? Perhaps they and we are all part of Karma, a universal source of equilibrium where all events are brought into spiritual balance as we each move onward and forward toward many more life/death cycles, while growing a tiny bit stronger and more enlightened with each cycle. Perhaps their shortened lives were and are a blessing in that they no longer suffer from heat, hunger, dust and toil, and lack of the blessings that flow abundantly to others. Perhaps the fallen have joined together in an afterlife that is absent all the hardships on this side of that better existence.

I haven’t yet bought totally into the spiritual side of the science known as GAIA, the acknowledgment that our planet is a living organism, and we are a subordinate organism on it who had better learn how to “go with the flow” else we could find ourselves being recycled back into the muck and the mire again and again. But I haven’t rejected that notion either. I often wonder about the rationality of those who return to living along the banks of a river that floods with regularity. Or those who live in the paths of hurricanes, or in earthquake areas, or near the domains of lions, and tigers, and alligators, and snakes. Perhaps it’s OK to lack a lot of compassion for all those who take on the kinds of risks that I would not and do not—at least most of the time.

But setting GAIA and Karma aside, life is tough enough without our adding more man-made perils to an already long and perilous list of dastardly endings. I am incensed, for example, at the sights and the sounds of income and wealth inequalities that are more rigidly entrenched in our culture than are all the natural threats combined. Just to think that there are a few among us who believe they are entitled to a life that is free from hunger, shelter, health care needs, education, transportation, and entertainment, who wrap themselves in all the trappings of luxury structures and vehicles and privileges; who seek and demand first-class treatment for themselves whenever and wherever they go, and despite all the inconveniences, the ruckus, and the hardships they cause others to endure. The additional observation that most of these obsessive types are typically disgustingly snobbish to accommodate overwhelms my senses and my sensibilities. Still, I cannot bring myself to hate them.

Case in point: Donald Trump recently won approval from the local authorities to build a wall around key parts of his luxury golf resort in Ireland to protect it from the ravages of erosion he asserts is caused by rising seas and global warming, issues that he otherwise proclaims are figments of our imaginations when we seek to do the same for the common good. Hypocrisy! I also wonder how many of his 500+ limited liability corporations claim ownership of that resort so his accountants can separate its assets and the liabilities and assign them in ways to reduce his tax burden to zero. If GAIA and Karma are keeping score, he has enough fare stored away for a one-way trip to the Sea of Tranquility where tides and global warming can only exist as figments of his imagination.

But enough about him: Apart from using land, water, and air wisely—keeping them as clean as we can—while leaving as small an ecological footprint on them as we can, there is not much more you and I can do about our place in this world. It is very difficult to not enjoy a beautiful sunrise or sunset, or to think ill of a glorious starry night, or to complain about winds and rain that cleanse our land or our minds. It all makes sense to me only when thought of as planned and orchestrated by a universal source, rather than merely from the collision of countless billions of collisions of matter occurring randomly—and occurring only once in 13.8 billion years to give us all that we observe and contemplate now. That thought leaves me feeling as useless as a speck of dust floating in an expanding universe from nothing to nowhere. But its denial does not give the preachers, or the priests, or the self-appointed clerics any status whatsoever. It’s much freer and more spiritually alive to think we soar on a course to eventual enlightenment, with GAIA, Karma, and Providence as our sidekicks, without feeling the need to pray to them, to ask favors of them, or even to pretend that we understand them. We simply are not smart enough yet to understand all the things we have yet to analyze, to synthesize, and to assimilate.

Yes, it satisfies this moment to think of living on Earth as part of a Grand Design, wrapped in GAIA, surrounded by Karma, and under the kind and artful baton of a forgiving Providence, where each of us gets the chance to live incredibly worthwhile lives—and occasionally sorrowful ones—until far off in some distant spiritual place we get to see, feel, and understand it all.

Anthropologists tell us that 100 billion Earthlings have come and gone since planet Earth found is place in the “Goldie locks” zone around our sun. Did they all count for nothing apart from the glory of their individual times spent here learning, discovering, teaching, contemplating, and living? Are they as “gone with the wind” as Margaret Mitchell and her novel? Or do they live yet, here or elsewhere, still on the pathway to an enlightenment that will eventually reveal life, meaning and purpose for us all?

I've got too much invested to trust life, meaning, and purpose to the negative side of a binary choice.  Where's the imagination or the satisfaction in that?