“Make an impact on the world, let your life amount to something great” 

Easily said phrase, however quite impossible to accurately achieve. Humans spend lifetimes trying to leave behind a legacy of greatness, such a mindset can turn even the most observational scholars into blind fools. Mother nature is constantly changing, and eventually the planet will become a wasteland and humanity will be nothing but remains regardless of how much praise was given. After such a morbid idea, how do you go about experiencing life?

Well the earth is always evolving, observation is the key to finding such evolution whether that be in plants or whole ecosystems. Humans, while highly intelligent, are still a species just like dogs and flowers. Just as insignificant in the grand scheme of things, however deeply impactful in the present. Seeds break through the threshold of the soil and emerge into the hands of the mighty sun itself, outreached leaves stretch towards the shining entity while the breeze drifts past the stem caressing its frail vessel. The rain peppering kisses gently along the leaves that eventually drip down the stem and into the soil where the plant’s soul lies hidden from the flirtatious world above, in the comforting embrace of Gaia’s realm. Years stroll by, the sun and moon continue their longing dance of love, and the sprout builds up a hard exterior of bark to protect its fragile essence from perverted insects and animals. Releasing oxygen into the wind’s desirable grasp, providing the gift of breathing its essence to unworthy creatures lurking in the glorious tree’s surroundings. Eventually being fruitful and birthing a culmination of all of its effort into delectable nutrition to be consumed by starving vessels. The galactic dance continues and the once reigning tree begins to shrivel and rejoin its place of birth in the soil. The starved animals do not mourn the loss of life itself, but move to another provider. Time continues its waltz towards inevitable doom, the tree is forgotten. However, the tree is not useless, at any given point the tree distributes the essence of living just as the others do. Lost in the sea of armored vases, the tree performs its task then dies. The tree did not make a unique impact nor did it leave a memorable legacy, yet the tree’s duties are universally praised and deemed necessary for all other life to exist, and potentially thrive. 

Humans are amongst the consumers, feeding on what Gaia provides in order to sustain life. Ironically, society has implemented the ideology that the human species is superior in comparison to others. Each morsel must contort themselves into a grotesque display of greatness in order to feel any sense of worth. Worlds of colors fly past blank eyes like jets through clouds, minds racing to get to the end and shake death’s hand; people sprinting to put their “legacy” on blast for the world to see, then soon forget just as the animals forget the tree. Faces planted in articles and newspapers, hands involuntarily filling out forms as if it’s second nature, mouths speaking words that are never processed by the mind. Education is the key, but what is the lock? A key is useless without something to break open, yet everyone sheepishly follows others to obtain the “key” in order to feel validation that they made it somewhere in life when in reality the vessel gifted by evolution has yet to experience the nature of living. Industrial gasses seeping into the veins of humanity crippling the machines of bone and muscle into submission. Clocks ticking, counting the seconds until the parasitic hosts can be released into the gaseous streets. Glass eyes reeling back towards the sky, not to admire the creations of air itself, but to challenge its authority; Believing that such a spec of a morsel can even surpass, let alone compete, with the blanket of life produced by generations of armored spawns mingling with the sun’s warm beams. Life is challenging life, like a child rebelling against its mother over who knows more about what. How insignificant. Perhaps replacing those clouded spheres of melted sand with kaleidoscopes would be for the better. Uprooting those mangled, expressionless faces from the news in order to experience the blossoming of happiness. Time will march on steadily until the end, and mother nature will continue evolving. Flowers bloom between cracks in the system revealing the power Mother still wields over the society humanity has created. No goal in the mind of the silk-like petals, perfectly content with their harsh environment of legs speeding past their prickled leaves. No one will notice the flower sadly, because no one will look for the flower. Mother changes her perspective in order to thrive in harsh environments, specimens will become heat resistant, bacteria will mutate, plants will build shields of poison and spines. Humanity is stubborn, little creatures believing that their species is in control of their mother which will inevitably lead to their downfall. 

Chained bodies reluctantly return to the soil, the place of all life, regretting the neglectful behavior that prevented beauty to coincide with brutality. Mother accepts our flaws with scarred hands and molding new life in hopes that the next specimen will be better. Unfortunately, those who value Mother’s gift are shunned for not desiring Death’s grip around their throats with the lie escaping their dying lips that their name will live on. It won’t. When the sun and the moon finally clash into each other’s embrace Gaia’s masterpiece will become a wasteland. Humans will have obtained their wish to kiss Death’s fiery lips. Except for the shunned, the persons who resided amongst the toughened vases that house life. The persons with jewels for eyes to allow color to flood into the wells of their minds. The persons with flowers exploding across glee-filled faces. The persons who have learned to value Mother will sink into pillows of moss and accept their place in the soil intertwining their souls with those of the “inferior”, as humans are no better than vultures and hyenas. Death will not set their souls ablaze, he will rather cusp their wisps of contempt in his calloused hands and set them free into the ocean of rebirth.

Humans are not better than other species, our society is an attempt to survive just as nests and anthills are. Legacies will turn into nothing but whispers of sound circling far above any society unable to be heard by deaf ears. The earth will have its creation lit up in a devastatingly beautiful display of flames. Humans will become trees, lost and forgotten. Acknowledge that existence is not meant for the desire of death, but the appreciation of the gift called life.