VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 7
Earth, the One and Only Paradise
This chapter is the first chapter of the second half of the whole volume. The last chapter settled the people who come home to the human world, one by one: who holds the real human's place, how the place goes forward and back, how the five are kept. With the settling done, it draws out a question: this human world that people come home to, what kind of place is it, really? The earlier volumes, saving people, guarding the five, laying down the four institutions, all silently took this planet as their stage, but never picked the stage itself out to speak of on its own. This chapter's three sections pick out, with all seriousness, the human world people come home to, and set it up as a proper subject. First, it lays down the place: the human world we come home to is Earth, the one and only planet in this universe. Then it lays down its beauty: this planet is the one and only paradise, with those seven, air, water, soil, sunlight, the turning seasons, the smoke and warmth of the human world, life that renews itself without end. Last, it lays down its danger: this one and only paradise is, right now, being ruined one thing after another, being pushed toward hell.
Section One starts from a line that looks ordinary: the human world is not somewhere else, it is this planet under our feet. The section points it out to the reader one thing at a time: the warmth of sitting round the table to eat leans on the grain this land grows; the seasons of spring plowing and autumn harvest follow this planet's round about the sun; the life in each breath in and out rests on the air in this layer of atmosphere. So to say the human world is Earth is not a figure of speech, it is a plain fact. One layer further, this planet is the one and only. Other planets are scorching like a furnace, or bitter cold like ice, or have no air to breathe. A tool breaks and another can be made, but this planet alone cannot be replaced, and there is no road back of "this one broke, there is still that one." At the end it points out why only this generation must face it head-on: the power of the dozens of generations before, however great, was never greater than this planet. In this generation, tools are strong enough to stir up the atmosphere, foul the rivers and seas, overturn the living web, and for the first time people have the power to ruin their own one and only home.
Section Two counts out the proofs of paradise, one by one. Air is the first: no color and no smell, people use it from birth to death without stopping for a moment, and yet almost never once say thanks for it. Water is the second: it rises from the sea, turns into cloud, falls as rain and snow, gathers into rivers, and flows back to the sea. Soil is the third: other planets have only dead rock and gravel. Sunlight is the fourth: this planet is neither far from the sun nor near; a little closer and it would be scorching like a furnace, a little farther and it would be bitter cold like ice. The section says these words, "just right," are where the deepest secret of paradise lies. The turning seasons and the smoke and warmth of the human world are, one, the beauty of heaven's time, the other, the warmth of human affairs: spring sprouts, summer grows, autumn reaps, winter stores; the cooking smoke in the morning, the bustle of the market, the night talk around the stove. The first six together raise the seventh, life that renews itself without end. All seven together, this is paradise. Look out over the universe: of all that people know and can reach, only this one has all seven. The aim of the section is to make people open their eyes again and look at this paradise under their feet that they have had all along, to grow a measure of wonder, to keep a measure of gratitude.
Section Three, the tone sinks. First it breaks an illusion: people enjoy those seven so long that they think them solid and unbreakable. In truth those seven are a balance this planet took hundreds of millions of years to raise, and rich soil takes a thousand years to build up an inch. And the harm is often what piles up over several generations, so slow that one generation cannot easily notice it. It is exactly this "slow" that breeds the illusion of "thinking it does not break." Then look at the present: the air is growing foul, the water polluted, the soil poisoned, the seasons disordered, living things dying out. These harms are tied to one another: the air grows foul, what falls is acid rain, and acid rain in turn poisons the water and eats away the soil. Why is it so heavy only in this generation? Because the power in this generation's hands is greater than ever before. Here the section tells it apart: the guilt is not in the power, but in the people who use the power. The same power, used right, can hold back floods, can water fields, can make the desert grow green; only used crooked does it become pollution, poisoning, dying out. Paradise and hell are not two places, they are two faces of the same planet: guard it well, and it is paradise; trample it to the end, and it is hell.
What this chapter makes firm is this: the human world is Earth, to guard the human world is to guard Earth; this one and only planet is the one and only paradise, and this paradise is, right now, being pushed toward hell. Making this harm plain is not to frighten people, but so that people see clearly, and from that grow the resolve to guard it. The next chapter takes apart, head-on, the words "at worst we just move somewhere else": some say it does not matter if Earth is trampled to ruin, people can move to Mars, and beneath those words hides a danger beyond telling.
Chapter contents:
Section One. The Human World We Come Back To Is Earth.
Section Two. Earth Is the One and Only Paradise: Counting Out the Seven.
Section Three. This Paradise Is Being Pushed Toward Hell.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.