Turtles have been around for 200 million years — a testament to how well adapted to this planet they are. But over the past century of human progress, their numbers have dwindled. Perhaps if turtles had developed the ability to fly, to run, or dash underwater, they would not be quite as endangered as they are today. Indeed, we humans, who have been around for just 200,000 years, have discovered ways to fly through the air, speed over land, and propel ourselves underwater. Our adaptive minds have allowed us to evolve quickly, setting us apart from other species.
As humans leapfrogged ahead, we began to compete with nature itself. We drink water that has been converted from seawater, grow crops immune to pests and diseases, and study distant planets that could some day be a new home. The pace of human innovation and progress appears to have no limits, making us feel as though we are perfectly in control. But as we rush to read the next sentence, we occasionally forget to pause for the commas. Indeed, in grammar, commas allow us to consider more deeply what came before, and what may come after. The Industrial Revolution gave us steam and combustion engines that powered mass production and connected whole continents. It brought electric lights to our homes and mass communications, allowing us to cooperate at a planetary level.
Today we have supersonic planes, rockets carrying humans into space, life-extending medicines, and every comfort our ancestors could only have dreamed of. But for all our great achievements, could we humans be the authors of our own destruction? The fossil fuels we have burned, our rapacious exploitation of natural resources, the waste and pollution that are byproducts of our overconsumption, and the destabilization of systems that nature has relied on for hundreds of millions of years mean we not only risk destroying the world’s biodiversity, but also ourselves.
Had we learned to pause at every comma, we could have seen this coming. But we are in such a hurry that we race through every sentence. The turtle, with its slow pace, stopping at every comma, has withstood the test of time because it is so well adapted, living in harmony with its ecosystem and perpetuating the slow march of its species. Only humans have managed to endanger its continuity. I am not saying we must become more like turtles.
But I believe we must pause and take a step back to consider the impact of progress that we have so far overlooked. Progress means allowing human ingenuity to advance while respecting the world that sustains us. So let us pause at the commas, take some time to process events, and then move ahead more responsibly.
