During my status as a member of the corporate world, I observed behaviours that are grouped under the heading, ETHICS (imagine big echo in a cavernous chamber: ethics-ics-ics-ics…).
During my status as a person contemplating the universe from the comforts of a cabin in a suburban forest, ethics have become meaningless.
Banks feel no pain when they pay fines for bad ethical behaviour.
Same for monoculture crop dominating corporations when they allow food prices to escalate due to poor seed/crop/farm management practices.
We know that being a politician is a life of questionable ethics to begin with.
These — all of the statements above — are meaningless statements in the ever-evolving global economy.
People of marginal moral behaviour are acting to stay ahead of societal/cultural curbs on borderline criminal activity.
What are ethics? I do not know but I can guess.
Is it my duty to require those around me to conform to a specific set of characteristics in order to interact with me?
If a corporation is not a person and cannot feel pain (or any emotion tied to our species), how can I train, educate, convince or coerce the corporation to put my species first and profit second?
The people who run and/or work for corporations are responsible for the activities of the corporation. They may convince themselves that phrases like “code of ethics” and “corporate citizen” protect themselves in the name of the corporation.
We may convince ourselves that the marketplace regulates corporate behaviour, if corporate citizens do not or government agencies cannot, due to lack of jurisdictional authority, for example.
While observing life on another planetary body, I laugh at the ways we’ve convinced ourselves we are an advanced civilisation because we’ve found/reinvented new methods to teach each other to conform to so-called standards of behaviour in the form of ethics and morals.
We are puppies chasing our tails, going ’round in circles, too dizzy to see what’s really going on in our quest to perpetuate the species.
When I run out of things to do on this planet but there’s no easy way to leave, what’s next to occupy my time?
Observing our behaviour in order to impress my father is no longer an option for me, personally.
This transition in my life is hard to describe in a blog entry without resorting to childish habits of lashing out in pain and anger.
Instead, I sleep long stretches of the day, not worrying about whether I wake up, happy to see sunshine, rain, clouds, heat and cold in equal measure.
To see the past, present and future as one has taken me to this point.
We live in one galaxy — there are thousands, millions, billions more galaxies to imagine how semi-autonomous beings like ourselves live.
We can imagine that other beings are more advanced than we and have solved (or not solved) ecological resource allocation issues, assuming a level of behaviour we call intelligence.
Every part/activity of the universe may be said to have had its moment to exist in a unique condition — hydrogen, helium, water, fission, igneous, comet, cupid, tree.
My life, no matter how long, is the briefest of time.
I exist in comparison to everything else that is distinct from the stimulus/response barrier that separates me in the moment from the rest of the universe.
I cannot see my breath. I cannot see my skin cells dying. I do not see the change in my brain’s set of neuronal pathways.
“I” is a limited observational machine, neither omniscient nor omnipresent.
Therefore, I do not know everything even if I can assemble a team of people and a large set of resources to compute probable futures based on possible pasts.
Words that are meaningless today: I, corporation, morals, ethics, time.
Without meaning, pain does not exist.
Without pain, we do not exist.
Existence is a made-up word.
The illusion of this blog entry ends now
treetrunkdings 