What have I learned today?

I've learned that humans can be bastard people.

And what's worse? I am a hypocritical bastard person.

I need to start looking into global warming and the things I can do to stop it.

I've come to a very interesting point. I was never able to watch an animal get hurt, even by another animal. Now I am addicted to Animal Planet, and see animals in the wild surviving in the ways they know how. And while I still get sad when I see something die, I know it is dying so something else can live. Circle of life. I am understanding that much more as I get older.

But I see the destruction that humans have done to the earth and all things living on it. I watched a polar bear try to attack walruses because it didn't have strong enough ice to stand on to hunt for seals. The bear was attacked and died, either of the wounds or starvation. Or both.

I know this earth is cruel. One of the lines from "Planet Earth" tonight was, "The calf may be cute, but nature is not so sentimental." I understand that there are plenty of carnivores on the planet, and many vegetarians as well. I understand that some creatures must kill and eat other animals to survive. Others do not need to. And I know there is no judgment in nature, and I attempt to not judge as well. To each their own.

To relate it to my own life, and take a slight detour at the same time, I know there was a time when I didn't think twice about what I ate. How it lived. How it died. Then I started to care, and avoided eating anything with a face or a mother. Then, over the last two years, I started to lose myself in many ways, and one of those ways was going back to eating meat. Yes, it tasted very good. But I always felt guilty, even if it was very slight, after eating meat. So now I am back to who I feel comfortable being, and that is opening up many more doors for me to look through.

Back to people being bastard people. There was a quote from an ad in "The Nation" that said, "90% of the population believes in global warming. The other 10% are still wrestling with the idea that the earth is round." There are shifts being made on our planet that are affecting so many creatures, and in turn humans, and there is so little being done about it. Lately, I've heard more about global warming than I ever remember hearing, but it still seems like it's not enough. Our ever ridiculous government is turning a blind eye to the problem. At the same time, I guess I would be afraid to have Bush attempt to stop global warming. He would call it "No Polar Icecaps or Bears Left Behind" and we would be in much worse shape than we are now.

This is where the idea of power comes into play. We are the only species on this planet with the full capabilities to reason, think abstract thoughts and invent. At least, as far as we know. Since we believe we are (and could be) the most advanced creatures here, we feel free to treat other creatures as we wish. Hell, we treat other humans as we wish.

Maybe there isn't really much hope. It would be one thing if we simply treated other species like shit, but we don't stop there. Maybe it would be easier to change the minds of people if, as people, we were all treated the same. Maybe if there was a sense of being equal among humans, we could start to tackle the inequality animals are treated with.

I guess I am truly feeling my full responsibility as a person, as a human. I feel the need to change things that need to be changed. I feel like I'm waking up from ignorance and finally seeing that I have a much larger responsibility than just making a living and supporting myself and my cat. I have a responsibility to speak for those that can't speak for themselves. I will be tackling that in my career, attempting to create a voice for people who are never heard. But it doesn't stop there. There are millions of things living that have no voice. Or their voice is ignored.

I have to think about the man walking on the beach, picking up stranded starfish and throwing them back in the water. The person walking next to him says, "There are so many. You can't possibly make a difference." The other man picked up a starfish, threw it in the water and said, "Made a difference for that one."

Maybe that's what I need to do. Get my volunteering started at the animal shelter (which I'm waiting to hear back from), keep going with my education (of course) and make a difference every day, no matter how small.

There is a very strong drive in me at this moment. It's been there for a bit, but it's just now coming to me full force. There is so much that needs to be done in this world, and I'm so afraid that one lifetime isn't enough.

But it has to be. And damnit, I will make full use of this life to improve the lives of others, no matter what species.