We had a crisis of epic proportions on our hands. Humanity was under siege like never before. Our very ways of living were under threat.
Yes, we had a pandemic of greedy hoarders, fearful they might run out of toilet paper to wipe their selfish little bottoms with.
Seriously. All jokes aside, the coronavirus that swept the world is a symptom of the continuing threat to humanity and the planet from our own selfish habits. Climate change and the damage we have caused to Mother Earth is real and always has been. A threat that has been apparent for many years which we have ignored time and time again.
Our continuing abuse of animals, destruction of the planet, and interference with the laws of nature brought us to our knees.
As the world shutdown, our survivalist instincts intensified. Our “Magpie Culture” of hoarding has, once again, reared its ugly head.
The term “Magpie Culture” was coined in Australia in the early weeks of the lockdown, where the hoarding of toilet roll, of all things, created chaos and panic.
It’s ridiculous. I mean, toilet paper. If the ship goes down, the last thing on our minds will be whether we have six rolls or sixty sat in our storage bin.
We won’t die from finding an alternative way to wipe our dirty little bottoms if needed, my friends. We’ll die if we don’t take the current crisis seriously, mend our ways and help Mother Earth to heal so that she can sustain humanity and future generations to come.
We have a “Magpie Culture” that runs through our society and we all know the magpie’s naughty little ways. Magpies are well-known for their thieving and hoarding habits, collecting shiny objects to adjourn their nests. They feed on the eggs and chicks of songbirds, defenceless little creatures, too. All in all, their habits are unpleasant, to say the least.
Sounds a little like our human habits, don’t you think?
We are a species of hoarders, ever more so in the west. We’ve yet to shake off our survival instincts to bunker down or understand that Mother Earth can provide for everyone on this planet if we quit our greedy ways.
Less is more for everyone else, my friends. Less is more.
While the divide between the rich and poor, the greedy and needy, has continued to grow, the continual stealing and hoarding of Mother Earth’s resources are unfair, to say the least.
We may say that we have worked hard for our material possessions, we pay for the food we eat, but there are still people starving in Africa, you know. Underprivileged people who couldn’t even begin to imagine the luxury we live in or the abundance of food we eat in the west, which includes using toilet paper.
I mention the people of Africa because they have borne the brunt of our greedy, western ways. Famine is always a risk due to their weather conditions and harvests regularly fail. We’ve had food stores in the west that could have saved Africa time and time again. Remember the famine of the 80s? It took a bunch of pop stars to right that wrong instead.
While the situation in Africa has improved dramatically, many are still below the poverty line. Not our problem, we may say, but it should be.
Which is how we feed on the disadvantaged and underprivileged. When we take anything more than we need from Mother Earth to hoard, we are taking from them.
And then there are our magpie habits when it comes to our material possessions. We humans like shiny things too.
When we continue to purchase tat that we don’t need or any items such as cars, electronics, furniture or clothing, that doesn’t need replacing, usually to keep up with the latest fad, we are wasting Mother Earth’s precious resource, and destroying her habitat in the process.
And then there are our food habits. We are naughty little magpies, as animals are abused for our selfish sensory pleasure (feeding on the eggs and young of other species) and the reason why we will face pandemics time and time again. There’s only one answer and I’m sure many won’t like it, We need to go vegan and quick.
I don’t believe that most humans have acted maliciously, but we have chosen to live in ignorance. We may say we don’t know any different. That we follow the rest of society rather than thinking for ourselves.
But we can think for ourselves and our planet. We can change our habits and make our world a much fairer and safer place in the process. Every small step helps.
(c) Samantha Wilson 2020. All Rights Reserved.
