Never Enough
There’s a great scene in the film Boyhood where the son asks his father if he believes in magic. The father, played by Ethan Hawke, thinks for a few seconds and then tells his son about all of the strange and different creatures that inhabit the earth and oceans and how if you think of them as magical, then, yes, he believes in magic. That scene has stuck with me for many years.
On planet earth, we have incredibly tall and huge trees that can live thousands of years, and that can literally record history in their rings. We have mammoth ocean creatures that can communicate over vast distances using sound waves. And they can essentially also use sound to see. There are tiny creatures with brilliant colors that look like they are alien life forms, and we can find them at the ocean’s edge. There are tiny flying insects that can see infrared light and that pollinate plants so that we can breathe and eat. We have underground fungal threads that connect plants and trees, enabling them to share resources and communicate. There are birds that can see in slow motion as they dive to attack prey. There are flying mammals that can hunt for moths in the dark using only echolocation. There are moths and butterflies that migrate incredible distances as part of the cycle of life. There are ecosystems that allow for immense biodiversity to the extent that we cannot even catalogue all of the life forms in these environments. There are mountains with blue glaciers, rocky coastlines, satin-soft beaches, deserts with towering sand dunes, boreal forests, rain forests, tundra, savannah, great lakes, braided rivers, volcanos that birth islands, seismic activity that literally shakes the earth beneath our feet. I could go on ad infinitum. But it is hard to think about all of these things and not think of them as magical.
And yet, it seems like it is not enough for us. We spend billions of dollars to create films, plays, musical performances, sporting events, political spectacles, and now virtual experiences maybe to prevent ourselves from the possibility of feeling existential boredom. Or to distract ourselves from understanding the infinite connections we share with this planet and everything on it. I’m not condemning the arts or technology — just questioning why we pursue them. What are we after? Is it the next big thing? Or is it profit that we are after?
I’ve seen that bumper sticker that says, “EARTH.” What does it mean? That the earth is the greatest artist of all for its myriad creations and stunning beauty? Or that the earth is itself the greatest work of art? Or does it mean both? Or is art, itself, the mimicry of the earth or nature and their creative forces? Do we just seek to have the power to create? Does every piece of art have a little earth in it? Or is it the other way around? Every little piece of the earth has art in it. We just need to find it? Or see it? Can we see it? Would seeing it be seeing its magic?
The earliest known human-made renderings were cave paintings depicting animals. Later some artists painted landscapes or photographed them. Maybe not to create but to capture? Is it a subconscious urge that we are drawn to capture or recreate some aspects of nature? Do we not realize that we already have them? For now, at least? That they are here before us in physical incarnation? Or is that not good enough? Must we make our own versions? Or are we longing for what we have forgotten that we still have?
Maybe we are just drawn to nature. Is it our nature to be drawn to nature? Have we forgotten that? Separated ourselves and built mental and physical barriers between us and the rest of the planet and universe? Told ourselves we are different? That we are something else? Is that why it seems like it is not enough for us? That we think we can never be of it or that it cannot be of us? Or that we think we have risen above it? That we deserve something more than we have gotten? A meta-verse maybe? Where we can live every fantasy we have?
How will it end? When will we reach enough? How will we know we have gotten what we deserve? What do we deserve? Do we deserve this planet? Does it deserve what we are doing to it? Is it our fantasy to think we can do all the things we do and still survive?