(adapted from ‘Savages’ by Don Winslow)      

            We humans had for a brief time – in cosmic terms – a civilisation on land surrounded by vast oceans and bordered by ice to the north, desert in the middle and ice to the south. This civilisation depended on water, for drinking and for crops to grow. Water is life.

We built houses, roads, highways, hotels, sky scrapers, shopping malls, condo towers, parking lots, airports, schools, stadiums and factories.

We proclaimed the freedom of individuals, invented, bought and drove cars to prove it and built more roads for the cars to drive on so we could go nowhere faster. We invented social structures to govern people and we conquered diseases and multiplied.

We all wanted the same things: cars, fridges, TVs, boats, toys.

We watered our lawns, washed our cars, drank water out of plastic bottles to stay hydrated in a dehydrated land and we put up water parks and big sculpted fountains.

We built temples to our fantasies – film studios, amusement parks, cathedrals, megachurches, football stadiums and we all flocked to them.

We built plains to fly around the globe and boats to cross the lakes and oceans and we poured our waste water into the same water we loved and depended on.

We built weapons to destroy each other and the planet and sent rockets into space.

We reinvented ourselves every day, remade our culture, our beliefs, locked ourselves into gated communities, multi bathroom houses, condo towers and trailer-parks and then we started eating healthy foods, gave up smoking and sun bathing, We had our faces stretched, our skins peeled, our lines removed, our fat sucked, our bodies rebuilt and we defied aging and death and warehoused our old.

We fought each other for land, water and minerals.

We enslaved, segregated and divided each other.

We extracted, modified, harnessed and subjugated.

We made gods of wealth and health

A religion of narcissism

In the end we worshipped only ourselves

In the end, it wasn’t enough