What Have We Done To Our Own Pandora?

[Sik'Turi]

I think it is safe to say that Avatar has affected millions of people worldwide in multiple ways, from the environmental message to the sheer homesickness it has implanted in so many individuals. Thinking about these things over the course of the past few days has brought me to the conclusion that many people simply aren't happy with the way the world is currently. However, that feeling is not just based on what they perceive with their feelings.

You might say, "No crap, that was obvious way before Avatar," but I mean, how many of you got up every day, went about your daily business, maybe heard about a shooting, bombing, wreck, oil spill, raging fire, etc, and came back home and went to sleep without a thought about the bigger picture? I know that I was in such a routine that I never really noticed, nor cared, about how the Earth was being affected by the actions of me, myself, and I. I was, on the other hand, noticing the actions of other people out there blowing things up, emitting Co2 into the air, industrializing the most precious lands on our Earth, etc. It caused me to think that I am putting the blame on the 5.999 billion other people on this planet and not taking any responsibility myself.

I was invited to the Environmentalist group on this website by Neytiri, which I gladly joined, and I came across a link she had posted about the world's rainforests. Keep in mind that I grew up learning about how we're losing X amount of rainforest everyday, Y number of species everyday, and Z number of opportunities for plants that could help evolve medicine, but the unfathomable amount of life we are losing in the Amazon and around the world is absolutely pathetic. Remember the fruit that Jake ate when he first piloted his Avatar? The one that so many people have thought looked so juicy and delicious? Take this fact and chew on it: At least 3000 fruits are found in the rainforests; of these only 200 are now in use in the Western World. The Indians of the rainforest use over 2,000.

What have we done to our own Pandora? I can not speak for anyone else on these forums or in this world, but I consider it an absolute shame, a pure irresponsibility by our own race's dominance, that there are such treasures in this world that have yet to be discovered that we are destroying.

Let's take another point from that website: There were an estimated ten million Indians living in the Amazonian Rainforest five centuries ago. Today there are less than 200,000. This one hits closer to home for many people. Sounds a lot like Avatar, doesn't it? Isn't this extremely close to what RDA was attempting in the movie? Sure, you may say they were only after the mineral, but "When people are sitting on **** you want, you make them your enemy, so your justified in taking it." Right? 10 million to 200,000, many of whom were elders who died taking medicinal recipes of the native plants we are destroying with them.

Something else that has intrigued me as I put more thought into it. One of the many symptoms of the "Pandora Effect" has been homesickness. Luckily, it is the only one of the symptoms I have experienced, as I absolutely do not want to be depressed over such a thing. That being said, I can completely understand where those feelings come from. Homesick is defined by Dictionary.com as being "sad or depressed from a longing for home or family while away from them for a long time." No one here has ever been to Pandora, except in our dreams. Everyone here has been to Earth, and everyone here had ancestors at one point in their tree who lived according to Earth's rules, not human's rules. Who lived with an absolute respect for the land, whether they were religious (like me) or nonreligious. An ancestor who did say a prayer to whatever deity they worshiped that the animal they had just hunted would provide energy for The People and return to the mother afterward, who did respect what their deity had bestowed upon them, and who did take one glance at a mountain, rainforest, or ocean and utter a translation of "Oe kllkxem hì'i," or "I stand small," instead of "Oe kllkxem apxa," or "I stand large." Our generation today is homesick because we have no home. Our ancestral homes are being destroyed as I sit here and write this if they haven't already. In my religion, my great-to-the-8th-power grandfather is sitting in Heaven and looking down at what used to be his grounds, which are now probably the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta, GA. We see Avatar's nature, though manmade in the movie the images are still taken from what God gave us, and I like to think that maybe our homesickness is coming from our inherent, instinctual desire to be a part of what was first given to us. If you're religious, the Garden of Eden? I wish not to go off on a huge tangent, though I actually already have, but it is my way of nurturing the seed that's been growing since I saw Avatar.

So I'm asking each and every one of you, look around you, look at the sky, the trees in your yard, the ocean, the mountains and realize what we are doing to them. Remember how small we should be compared to them, and scoff at how we have tried to make ourselves larger than our own habitat, our own mother. Take a look at yourself and utter, "Oe kllkxem hì'i" while realizing that while the other 5.999 billion Sky People out there may not understand what is happening to our own Pandora, you...a Na'vi, you do.

[The Na'vi]

Wow, man thats was the best thing I have read in awhile. You hit it right on the spot, this world really needs to wake up and people do need to start doing something about it. I believe we did once live on a 'Pandora', just the high-tech means of life today got in our way...and the greed for land and power is destroying whats left of our Pandora =\

[irh1905]

Agreed, and very well written. You hit the nail on the head.

[Adonai]

Make this sticky please.

[Sik'Turi]

Oh dang o.o Wasn't expecting that. Thanks guys :D

[fkeua vrrtep]

I think it is safe to say that Avatar has affected millions of people worldwide in multiple ways, from the environmental message to the sheer homesickness it has implanted in so many individuals. Thinking about these things over the course of the past few days has brought me to the conclusion that many people simply aren't happy with the way the world is currently. However, that feeling is not just based on what they perceive with their feelings.

You might say, "No crap, that was obvious way before Avatar," but I mean, how many of you got up every day, went about your daily business, maybe heard about a shooting, bombing, wreck, oil spill, raging fire, etc, and came back home and went to sleep without a thought about the bigger picture? I know that I was in such a routine that I never really noticed, nor cared, about how the Earth was being affected by the actions of me, myself, and I. I was, on the other hand, noticing the actions of other people out there blowing things up, emitting Co2 into the air, industrializing the most precious lands on our Earth, etc. It caused me to think that I am putting the blame on the 5.999 billion other people on this planet and not taking any responsibility myself.

I was invited to the Environmentalist group on this website by Neytiri, which I gladly joined, and I came across a link she had posted about the world's rainforests. Keep in mind that I grew up learning about how we're losing X amount of rainforest everyday, Y number of species everyday, and Z number of opportunities for plants that could help evolve medicine, but the unfathomable amount of life we are losing in the Amazon and around the world is absolutely pathetic. Remember the fruit that Jake ate when he first piloted his Avatar? The one that so many people have thought looked so juicy and delicious? Take this fact and chew on it: At least 3000 fruits are found in the rainforests; of these only 200 are now in use in the Western World. The Indians of the rainforest use over 2,000.

What have we done to our own Pandora? I can not speak for anyone else on these forums or in this world, but I consider it an absolute shame, a pure irresponsibility by our own race's dominance, that there are such treasures in this world that have yet to be discovered that we are destroying.

Let's take another point from that website: There were an estimated ten million Indians living in the Amazonian Rainforest five centuries ago. Today there are less than 200,000. This one hits closer to home for many people. Sounds a lot like Avatar, doesn't it? Isn't this extremely close to what RDA was attempting in the movie? Sure, you may say they were only after the mineral, but "When people are sitting on **** you want, you make them your enemy, so your justified in taking it." Right? 10 million to 200,000, many of whom were elders who died taking medicinal recipes of the native plants we are destroying with them.

Something else that has intrigued me as I put more thought into it. One of the many symptoms of the "Pandora Effect" has been homesickness. Luckily, it is the only one of the symptoms I have experienced, as I absolutely do not want to be depressed over such a thing. That being said, I can completely understand where those feelings come from. Homesick is defined by Dictionary.com as being "sad or depressed from a longing for home or family while away from them for a long time." No one here has ever been to Pandora, except in our dreams. Everyone here has been to Earth, and everyone here had ancestors at one point in their tree who lived according to Earth's rules, not human's rules. Who lived with an absolute respect for the land, whether they were religious (like me) or nonreligious. An ancestor who did say a prayer to whatever deity they worshiped that the animal they had just hunted would provide energy for The People and return to the mother afterward, who did respect what their deity had bestowed upon them, and who did take one glance at a mountain, rainforest, or ocean and utter a translation of "Oe kllkxem hì'i," or "I stand small," instead of "Oe kllkxem apxa," or "I stand large." Our generation today is homesick because we have no home. Our ancestral homes are being destroyed as I sit here and write this if they haven't already. In my religion, my great-to-the-8th-power grandfather is sitting in Heaven and looking down at what used to be his grounds, which are now probably the Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta, GA. We see Avatar's nature, though manmade in the movie the images are still taken from what God gave us, and I like to think that maybe our homesickness is coming from our inherent, instinctual desire to be a part of what was first given to us. If you're religious, the Garden of Eden? I wish not to go off on a huge tangent, though I actually already have, but it is my way of nurturing the seed that's been growing since I saw Avatar.

So I'm asking each and every one of you, look around you, look at the sky, the trees in your yard, the ocean, the mountains and realize what we are doing to them. Remember how small we should be compared to them, and scoff at how we have tried to make ourselves larger than our own habitat, our own mother. Take a look at yourself and utter, "Oe kllkxem hì'i" while realizing that while the other 5.999 billion Sky People out there may not understand what is happening to our own Pandora, you...a Na'vi, you do.

Dude , we simply feel homesick because we are being put into huge modern concentration camps made of steel and concrete , I don't even live in a big city , approximately only 100 thousand people in my town ,and it already looks like a dead piece of plastic to me , there is almost no green , and if you find some you clearly see that the tree or the plant doesn't feel good in it's environment , the plants start changing colours into greyish or even yellow like because of all the stuff they have to take into them with the poisened water that's being put into our groundwater .

I pretty much feel always a kind of depression when I walk through this so called town , cold collosi of steel and concrete looking down at me , it almost feels like you are being watched from every angle , you can almost hear them whispering to you "stick to the system or you'll be the next savage" .

It seems like people have become to unconcerned to feel for their environment , I can see it every day how the stultification of our youth is growing and growing , and I keep asking myself , is this our future ?
Are we really going to end up like that one day ?

It seems like everyones in a rush trying to possess as much as they possibly can , but they are wrong , you cannot possess what does not belong to you.
Everything you are given in this life is lent from nature , nothing of those things you gain in this life have any value .

There is only one thing that counts in life , and I sure as hell do not refer to ferraris , hummers , expensive airplanes or yachts , there are things in life that can't be measured in price , things that count so much more than anything materialistic you could every "own" and that's life itself , nothing has a higher value than life itself and the people in it .

We as the people , are given a unique opportunity , a unique chance and a unique gift and it just seems like we are throwing it away just like a used hanky , once used and throw it away and forget about it , we have to keep in mind that everything we do , and I mean everything has consequences ,
everything that we do will be measured on the weighbridge of life and as far as it looks we are straining the whole thing to it's limit .

If we don't start to realize and start acting and spread awareness amongst our people and specially to our children , this world will come to it's downfall at a certain point .

It's sad that nature still welcomes us as it's children , still offers us shelter and all of it's gifts we've been given from her since the first day even though we seem to lieterally spit into it's face and hit her until she finally colapses and falls to her knees , someday nature might turn it's back against us , and there is without a doubt nothing more powerful on earth than natures wraith , nature will always be the superior force in life no matter how hard you might challenge her , but I hope this day will never come and we will clear our mind , as a whole , as one , to set things straight and come back to our origins .

Humanity has spilled way too much blood on the surface of it's own planet with the blood of his own kind on it's path of selfdestruction , it is time to stop this insane bloodrush that has been destroying our families and our homes for centuries , and the biggest weapon against the evilness in this world is awareness and knowlegde , the pen has always been mightier than the sword do never underestimate the power of knowlegde , it is time that people start realizing , not tomorrow , not in a couple of months , not in 20 years , NOW or we shall all become the arcitects of our own demise !

[Uniltìranyu]

That's a well written post Sik'Turi.
I support this for sticky!

[Sik'Turi]

That's a well written post Sik'Turi.
I support this for sticky!

Thank you :D

[Neytiri.]

homesickness, i never thought of it like that. its completely true though, if we didn't kill our planet we wouldn't have to fantasize about a new one.

[irh1905]

homesickness, i never thought of it like that. its completely true though, if we didn't kill our planet we wouldn't have to fantasize about a new one.

Exactly. This planet used to be just as beautiful as Pandora(minus the glowing plants)