what if it was a gift?

it occurred to me recently that the liquid fossil-fueled industrial revolution could be viewed as a sort of intentional gift from gaia, our mother earth. that made me think about it a bit differently from my habitual mode (which is cynically, as in "we're headed straight to hell in a handbasket on greased skids").

great spirit knows, I'm not a religious man, and I'm more than a little hesitant to ascribe judeo-christian deity-style consciousness to anything, but I'm also the first to admit that I believe there is more to the form and function of the universe than meets the eye. so what if there was some sort of intention behind this planet, and what if the extraordinary convenience of liquid fossil fuel (i.e., crude oil in all its lovely and widely available forms) was a sort of gift to humankind from this consciousness? even I can step back from the the immediate barrage of cynical "oh really's?" that assault my admittedly all-to-welcoming mind at such a thought; such as, "this gift that has led to more vicious human strife in the recent history of humanity than all but religion? that gift?" and "in barely 125 years we've managed (apparently) to just about crash the planetary climate program with this so-called 'gift'". like that.

even so. for some strange reason I can't fathom, I found myself stepping back a bit, and, from my armchair anthropohistorian perspective, imagined the liquid gold as a gift to humanity to help it take a leap forward in technological capability, to catapult humanity into a new age that permitted the development of further technologies to allow us to arrive where we are now: the digital age, the ascension of science and technology as a basis for lifestyle--- no, more fundamental than merely style of living; modus operandi for living. further, that this new higher-level living modality (remember, I'm ignoring, for the moment, all the "details" of this global change: the gross inequities and hideous human and environmental degradation our use of the black goo has caused) was intended as a stepping stone toward a new human consciousness that would permit of the very perception of the gifting consciousness itself---- with the intention of our ultimate transition to sustainable living modalities and technologies.

begs the question: why would gaia (or Whomever) take us from eden and put us through hell just to show us the way back to eden? what do I look like, I have an answer to everything?? figure that one for yourself!..... or just give me a few minutes.....