The Olive

 

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The Olive

Most of us don't think much about the olive. Why should we, right? It comes in a jar at the store, or fresh on it's own and we use it as added flavoring to our foods or as a garnish. Almost nobody you've ever met has ever looked down and thought much of it beyond what they see. In fact, most of us throw them away once they have served a purpose we have predetermined for them. As if we have determined its fate from the moment we see it. Why am I talking about this you may ask?

Simple. Disposable life.

I work in the food service industry a few nights a week and I throw away leftovers as a part of my day to day life. Not once have I ever looked past the mentality of: "this is no good so I'll just throw it out." Until last night that is. For some reason, I looked past what I could see and the actions I was taking. I saw what was really happening. I had decided in a split second that I was going to throw away a proven form of life because it had served it's purpose and was no longer of use to me. Just like you, I just told myself that it was just food and it doesn't matter, but once that idea was in my head it was there to stay. It got me thinking about how deep this behavior we all exhibit actually goes. What deems one form of life to be of more value to us than others? I started to think on it a bit more and came up with a theory.

Interaction

How we relate to life. olives can't be communicated with consciously by the limitations of our senses. Therefore, we deem them to be of low relative value. We can't appreciate what we can't communicate with. It is our nature to view things this way. Although we can interact with the olive, we can't speak too it. We lose the connection with it and devalue it's life. It is indeed alive. Plant it and it will eventually grow into many olives. It reproduces, it has living cells and it has a life cycle. Direct sensory/social communication seems to be our conscious limitations to the value of life.

"Why should it matter? It's only an olive."

Ahh yes. The words you've all been thinking. I know because I limited my mind to the same thought at first. Think a few steps further. This same mindset is on a much larger, more dangerous scale than the more simple olive. Life must consume life to survive. That relationship is essential for all living things, plant or animal. Yet we have made life an industry. Like all of you, I profit from this industry. It's made my life easier, more convenient. Yet, in one small moment, an olive was able to alter my perception as to the disconnecting effects of industry. We are slowly losing our love and respect for that which we consume to survive. Industrialization is a double edged sword. Wield it with honor and respect and it will win all wars. Misuse it or forget it's true power, it could kill you.

 

The measure of life

The next factor here to consider is what we designate as being recognized as life. The designation, is sentience. The value of life is often associated with this misconception about what it intelligent and what is not. For example, am I intelligent? I would certainly like to think so. I'm writing this article and I am aware of myself, therefore I must be, right? Wrong. Intelligence is made up. Like all else we as a species have built or designated, we cannot know that we are intelligent or that a plant nor an animal is not intelligent. We are unique, period. an olive, according to it's own design and function is just as intelligent, it is simply different. For instance, I don't know what the ideal conditions are for an olive to grow into a plant on my own. I can learn, but where did that information come from? It came from the olive. By observing, we learned how it grows because it was able to communicate to us how it does so by living it's life as it normally would. If the olive didn't know how to survive, we wouldn't have learned how it did so. This same principle applies to all other forms of life as well. 

 

Simple, yet rare

 

Take a moment to look around you.

Take 5 slow, deep breaths and take a moment to absorb you surroundings.

All done?

Good.

How did that feel and what did you experience? Depending on your setting, mood, awareness of detail... All of you will have had a different experience. Whatever is near you is unique and is only found on Earth. Think about the dept behind those words. Everything. What you are, what you have, the life around you... None of it exists anywhere else in the known Universe. Yet, we are so detached from the life on our little blue world that we forget how precious and rare it truly is. That olive in the trash represents millions of years of an endless chain of uninterrupted processes that lead to it's formation. Yet, my actions deemed it unworthy of consumption or reproduction. I,alone, broke a chain that stretches back all this time. This small, discarded piece of life, with all its complexity was not worth a second look. I dictated it's end with one failed swoop of the plate. Millions of years of evolved genetic complexity, erased... Sadly, despite my best efforts asking myself these questions as you are, I will still continue to live the way that I do. The world we live in has not been designed with empathy towards nature in mind. Slowly, many have begun to realize this and have taken action to work towards a day when balance will once again be restored.

Think on this idea of the olive. Look past the obvious and think deeper on the meaning. Master this, and you can understand yourself and your relation to our reality.

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