Carol+Choo's+Collapse+Reflection

//2210: The Collapse//

Teachers often exposed me to several documentaries like //The 11th Hour//, regarding the human civilization’s collapse. The problem is that I see the dangers coming from the frequent natural disasters and abnormal animal behaviors, but I don’t really see them **that** dangerous. It’s difficult to explain, but I think //The Collapse// nailed it down for me. I understand that the luxurious life that we currently live is hazardous to our future, but it seems such a huge problem that I cannot tackle it. When in the reality, all it takes is will-power and team work of us.

Regardless of the type of crisis we are bound to face, or rather, might be facing, the current situation is at the climax stage, and we need to make a decision. I’m sure most high school students feel the same way; it’s a global problem: “what can I do?” I see so many articles regarding the human’s oblivious attitude, and reckless technological advancements, but I don’t see that around me, around my activity space. If I don’t see the potential global crisis, then it’s very difficult for me to give up what I have, according to my animal-like nature. We always crave for more, and that is the way the nature works, but again, this is like the discussion that we had: individualism verses collectivism. The boarder is so vague and we don’t know which one to choose. It’s between investment for the present verses investment for the future. It would be great to be right in the middle, but I say that the current human civilization is skewed towards investment for the present; we should turn our gears around and invest more into our future from now on.

In Korean words, we put it “small things accumulate and make up a whole.” That was my father’s philosophy behind accumulating great sums of money with basically nothing. Likewise, we have more than 6 billion man power to make use of, and if every one of them contribute a bit to our future, we can delay the collapse, and earn time to find an alternative energy source that is as effective as burning fossil fuels.

I was so busy with what was happening around me, and about me. I remember Mr. Parron once told Freshman girls sitting at cafeteria, worrying about a world history quiz, “This isn’t what the school should be really teaching; these quizzes shouldn’t make you nervous; they only make you see the small things that won’t even matter in your life.” At that time, we were hit to hard by such a big idea; our main concern was earning an “A,” not studying philosophy. However, after watching this documentary, I think I sort of understand what he means by “small things.” The big thing is approaching, but I feel like we are helpless, unless we take a quick action right now, as I am writing my reflection on my potential downfall.