When you boil it down, it's about the celebration of a birth, a renewal, without which we'd die out as a species and, along with that extinction, would die out the many good and great things we - humanity - have/has achieved.
A baby or a child. A tiny human being. The magic of nature in producing a newborn. A small collection of recognisable cells, legs, arms; have you ever felt the feet of a newborn baby? Like precious velvet. Uncorrupted. Vulnerable. Totally dependent.
A blank canvass. Genetically programmed to survive, to take on food, to grow, to live.
To smile: Babies smile when they recognise you. Their natural instinct is to smile. To be friendly.
To like other people. And to be liked. A social animal that relates to and is friendly towards other people from a very early age. A survival mechanism of course, but also an innate, internally hard-wired instinct that I think runs alongside a natural instinct about recognising fairness, caring for others and by being unquestionably loyal and loving, being treasured and loved themselves.
As I say it's a survival mechanism and a fantastic one - who could in all conscience want to harm a naive, innocent child? What could that innocent child possibly have done to incite you to harm them? Dogs have a similar instinct and have got 'being cute and loving' down to a fine art too these days, having thrown off their wolf-like instincts for a much more comfortable life on the sofa. But sadly for them (the wolf) they don't have opposable thumbs and so they're pets rather than capable adversaries of us humans.
Survival must be high amongst our achievements: against the odds really. Many animals are more ruthless and accomplished killers as individual beings. Sharks, snakes, bacteria, wolves, crocodiles would all kick the shit out of us in a straight fight but we have bigger brains and, therefore, a successful, intelligent and collective approach to dealing with our enemies.
So, unlike them, we've come up with the wheel, the plough; we've moved on from being hunter gatherers to farmers, we've built great cities, roads and bridges, societies, communities, lifestyles. Prosperity; the arts, great music, great literature, massive symbols of our power from Canary Wharf to the Pyramids.
We've visited other planets, heck we've landed a washing machine on a comet for goodness' sake. The Clangers now have clean underwear.
And if we can do that we might just be able to survive as a species when we have to depart this planet at some time in the future when the Sun (probably our major 'God' if one thinks about it) fizzles out in about 12 billion years. (Some students might have paid off their loans by then). Al Gore thinks this will happen next Tuesday week by the way. But he's a moron, we've inevitably created (more than) a few along the way.
And yet, and yet.
Re-read the above and what do you think? How far have we come?
We're not content with securing control over our natural adversaries; the sharks or crocodiles or wolves. It seems some of us need to secure control over each other and are willing to kill other people (including children) in order to achieve that control.
Animals (and new-born babies) are not 'intelligent', 'experienced' or 'corrupted' enough to be completely stupid. They are always acting on their innate instinct for survival.
It seems to me that only humans have the capacity to be so totally stupid that they will justify the killing of children and other humans so that they can gain some kind of advantage over their fellow humans.
Often, sad to say, in the name of God.
So well done, we have the wheel and the plow and the city and the bridges, but we seem currently to be making a right f*ck up of this world in which we all live.
It started so well - this piece and this peace.
Anyway I hope you have a happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous New Year, and that we can stop the idiots amongst us from carrying on their idiocy. Sometime soon would be just great.
Love and peace to you and yours. Have a lovely Christmas.
My images of the year:
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| We rightly respect and remember our heroes |
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| Floods |
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| Election coming next May |
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| Still at large |
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| You seem to having trouble getting off the ground this morning wing commander |
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| Proof? |
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| Rush hour in Yellowstone |
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| Osprey diving |
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| Gimme five |
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| Don't want to worry you but.. |
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| A trophy at last |
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| A vote to stay in the Union |
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| The Woodland Pytchley at Dingley Dell |
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| Our (gay) wedding of the year |
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| Great visit to the old homestead (Conwy Castle) |
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| And the smallest house in Britain |
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| Mad as a Hatter |
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| Jeeves welcomes our new arrival |
And a new addition to the family - Rupert.
Happy Christmas one and all!
