Life expands until it cannot. Are humans an exception?

When bacteria are cultured in a dish, the process begins under almost ideal conditions. As the colony grows, the conditions will deteriorate with the buildup of waste and the reduction of the medium by consumption. Even if food and waste do not become a problem, the colony finally reaches the limit of the dish in which it is cultured.

With mankind the factors are the same though not immediately apparent. The quality of life can deteriorate before environmental limits are reached but instead of a dish, we live on a planet. We produce waste but, unlike it is with bacteria, our waste can be carted away. Our food and consumer items are not limited to what is available on site, so the consequences of consumption may go unnoticed. While bacteria exist surrounded by both waste and food, human residential areas can be idyllic, giving no hint of pollution at production sites or landfills of waste, both of which support the residents. While we have minds that bacteria lack, we also have the ability to place the physical consequences of what we do out sight and out of mind.

Our technology extends our limits far beyond what they would be due to nature undisturbed. Comparing primitive man ranging across a savanna dressed in animal skins with modern man flying around the globe shows both how far the frontier of limitation has been extended and the great increase in the expense of a human life on the natural budget, where we withdraw far more than we put in.

Part of living life at a slower pace is recognizing that there are limits to the expansion of any form of life, that for man the limits have not been reached but are being approached. Since human desire is unlimited, the only thing to prevent desire from meeting physical limitation is reason. Since it is perfectly possible to find happiness without abandonment to desire, why not settle for less than everything? Doesn't it make sense to reach a decision to restrain desire before the quality of life deteriorates to the point where restraint is imposed? Far better that I do something of my own free will than that others impose limits on me.

We live in a period of closing options. I cannot go any speed on the highway, no matter how powerful a car I own, because there are many others sharing the road with me. I do not have the land to myself to do with as I wish. There are laws against this and that with more of them all the time. Restrictions due to the number of people who want to do something at the same time are becoming more common. Will this change for the better in the future if every one of us wants still more than we have today?

Just as we put the physical effects of our way of life out of sight, the horizon of human life in the future shrinks due to our indulgence in living heedlessly. I advocate doing as we would want others to do so that we will not share the fate of bacteria in a dish.

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