Perhaps being the son of a mailman has something to do with my obsessive proclivity for walking. Rarely do I miss the opportunity for my daily stroll along the San Francisco Bay. It enriches me. I only have to observe and absorb. Today, for example, I saw two butterflies dancing in the air, likely enthralled in some kind of mating ritual. They are part of a repopulation event that has been repeated for over 400 million years within the insect population. On this day, the advent of spring lined my path with the descendants of plants and trees that have thrived for as long as insects. I thought of the dinosaurs that roamed, as I do now, over similar green plains 300 million years ago. Framed within this green-scape, I came across an explosion of yellow orange wildflowers, like the flowering plants that have brightened earth’s landscape for the past 130 million years. And then I encountered a woman walking her dog and a jogger running by me, calling to mind the first humans to walk the face of the earth some 200,000 years ago. Of course, humans are part of the fecundity of nature. But somehow we are apart from it as well. Jogging, playing, building, mining, writing, painting, fighting, and so many other activities have a uniquely human trajectory. Our history, however, may or may not align with mother earth. Our planet has existed for over 4.5 billion years and has passed the halfway point of its life span. However, scientists believe it may not be able to support human life beyond another 1.75 billion years. So nature has given us an expiration date. We cannot extend it on earth. But we can shorten it. My question for the day: will we last as long as the living organisms that greet my daily stroll?

As I have already stated, walking is an obsession for me. So it is easily explainable why I love to walk the cities I visit, observing and relating to all I see. Once, my peripatetic ways led me to the beautifully manicured grounds of a Viennese government building. The building was reminiscent of another era when emperors ruled and nobility paid obeisance there. But on this day, I passed nearly alone, except for a father and his young daughter ahead of me. They were holding hands and moving at a pace the 5 or s 6 year old could manage. Then the father stopped and looked at something on the ground. His action was unexpected and startled me. I too stopped and followed his gaze. There on the path was a crumpled piece of paper. The little girl first looked up at her father, then looked down, mimicking my response. As soon as she saw the crumpled paper, she released her father’s hand, quickly picked up the paper, ran to a nearby trash receptacle, and deposited it there. As she returned to her father and took his hand, I remained standing there, watching them walk away and absorbing the significance of what I had just witnessed. Not a word had been spoken between the pair. Yet this child had obeyed the silent dictum of her father and, unwittingly, of her Austrian community. My thoughts turned to the nature of a respectful, obedient, good mannered and well behaved society. Those thoughts were comforting and made me feel secure, until the image of a people duped by the Fuhrer intervened. How can a society protect itself from the opportunism of an authoritarian who promises to maintain the security of a well-ordered society by falsely scapegoating and violently eliminating contrived threats? Now, fast-forward to the present. A German periodical recently reported that over 200 German refugee shelters were “attacked or firebombed” in 2015. Apparently, there are still a few people in Germany who want to preserve their way of life by eliminating “dangerous” outsiders, in this case, refugees.

In 2005, I had the opportunity to spend several weeks in the City of Lights. By day, I walked the length and breadth of Paris, enthralled by both the city and its people. I discovered that the French are as enamored by their culture as they are with each other. Every day was a revelation in humanism: the ideal of beauty in art, of richness in culture, and of love in the intimate moments they shared with each other and often in public. But there were parts of Paris I apparently had missed in my wandering. It was the occasion of my return from an excursion to Italy that I discovered the City’s dark side. The car radio broadcasted frightening news: a government mandated curfew had been announced because of riots and the burning of over six hundred cars in the streets of Paris. The next day I walked the streets again, but saw something different on the faces of those I passed. I saw both determination and anxiety. What I learned then about the two faces of Paris gave me context for the more recent terrorists’ attacks of 2015. Apparently, there are outsiders in France who are unassimilated into French society and who can present a threat to its wellbeing.

I have walked the streets of more than a few of the major cities in the world, many of which are in America. My observations of those American cities are similar in some aspects, yet different in general. Every American city I have visited has enclaves living outside of the mainstream culture or ideal, much like cities in other countries. The difference in America is the general nature of our society. That nature is built upon a revolutionary fervor and a frontiersman attitude towards the future. We are a strongly independent-minded, self-reliant people whose curiosity propels our future like a continuing adventure saga. We value personal freedom above all, customarily displaying an inordinate repulsion of authoritarianism in favor of egalitarianism. The latter, however, requires more of us. Specifically, it is not possible to believe in freedom for all when a significant plurality of the nation lives in poverty a/o without equal opportunity in education, in occupation, in judicial process, or in government services. Egalitarianism presumes consideration for others. Philanthropy in America gives evidence that we care for one another. We just need to have that care permeate every aspect of our culture and our politics. Without it, we breed the same outsider groups found in major cities around the world. And those groups may or may not become a physical threat to our nation as a whole; but they certainly are an obstacle to our nation’s ability to realize its full potential and the promise of its founding principles. Cities like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and many more are afflicted with poor, run-down neighborhoods, and angry youth whose future prospects are not promising. Nonetheless, those prospects are either America’s opportunity for gain or shame.

And so today I walk through the green mansions of spring beside the sun-sparkling ripples of the San Francisco Bay. The trees are bursting with new leaves; wild flowers brighten my path; and the first pair of Canadian geese sound the advent of an early migration while redwing blackbirds sing the commencement of their annual nesting at the local pond. The cycle of life continues. We, unfortunately, will not be part of that cycle for long if we continue to allow divisions within our societies and maintain inequality in our systems. The selfishness and greed that hoard wealth and resources are also the catalysts for the irreverent pillaging of the earth. If we continue without care, our societies may degrade into chaos even before mother earth can take our measure. Our current path through human history may not only be unsustainable, but even self-destructive. Again, I feel compelled to repeat my question: will we last as long as the living organisms that greet my daily stroll?