Confessions In Our Time

For many years, I have written essays and papers about the urgent need for a global agreement based on harmony; today, with the purpose of attracting more people; I decided to write it in the form of a letter.

- Ernesto Kahan

Dear cohabitant on Earth;

A day of unbearable heat and, while on television there were repeated announcements requesting everyone to preserve water, which, despite the existence of desalination plants, was increasingly scarce. I was walking through the park near the university and looking at the grass that had a yellowish tinge.

I sat on a bench in front of a many hundred-years-old tree, one of those that, due to their age, lived through the history of revolutions, wars, technological advances and dictatorial leaders who inflamed confused multitudes. The tree brought to mind existential thoughts about the present and future of life on planet Earth, because I belong to a complex generation of human beings existing among times of violent wars of domination, the development of amazing new technological techniques, including atomic weapons for the final destruction of civilisation, supercomputers, industrial globalization, artificial intelligence, and the capacity to produce resources to eliminate hunger in the world. We are a generation that lives with dilemmas that question the future of humanity and all biology.

While I analysed all this, I felt that my body was flooded with endorphins, which are the internal substances that react to strong emotional reactions of pain, love, joy, exaltation of nature, or crises of my own identity - reactions that provoke changes in my breathing and probably in blood pressure. Immediately, I felt my eyes and face were flooded with tears that were accompanying my sadness.