Reading about your trip to Head-smashed-In, I recalled that I mentioned a great book the last time we met, called 'A Short History of Progress' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_History_of_Progres) it explains exactly that… how much we've taken and how much we've lost as a result of this fixation on human progress… I've read a lot of works trying to understand our addiction to progress, whether technological, economic, or whatever… but what does progress mean? Ever since the agricultural evolution and the shift from hunter/gatherer to farmer/domestication we've been fixated at keeping ourselves busy with all this new found free time, so we invented and created to keep us busy.. Thinking it will make our lives easier, more comfortable, etc.. But in a big way, it has removed us from this cycle of being part of our environment, keeping us grounded and dependent on working with the earth, not against it like now.. We've become out of touch with this sacred balance.. It's also an ego thing, we as humans see ourselves now as a separate part from the world, not as an integral part of it… so we use the earth to further ourselves, create and invent things to supposedly simplify our lives, but really they make things more complicated.. We become reliant on our inventions… instead of using the things we create as a tool to expand our well being and happiness as we originally thought, we become dependent on them for our well being and happiness… man doesn't control technology anymore, technology controls man.. I'f you've read anything by Aldous Huxley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley), perhaps the book 'Brave New World', he talks a lot about this grip of technology and progress on man..and as I just recently found out that a good friend of his was Alan Watts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts), an amazing man of eastern/western religion and philosophy who focused many writings on personal identity, the true nature of reality, consciousness and the pursuit of happiness… he does a lot of exploring of the human ego, and why we behave and act the way we do.. amazing author and I recommend you read some of his writings...

We've created a monster, a progress trap.. The digital world, nuclear weapons, bio-engineering, etc.. This is progress…? I think it's a progression away from the natural balance, away from family, away from spirituality, and far away from Humanity.. Where or when does it end? It's endless if you get the notion that we will never be happy with just being, just relaxing our big brain, and letting go of everything.. I think you're right in saying we'll have to hit the wall and take the plunge before we become humble again and accept that we cannot control everything.. We cannot play god… And is it worth the price we are paying by loosing our past and even our future for it?

Everyone has bought into this, I struggle with dealing with it everyday here.. epically the mass consumerism over Christmas.. Woowie..

I've also seen a lot of good documentaries the past while I'd like to sometime turn you on to, Inconvenient Truth, Black Gold, Future of Food (A Must for You!!), and a few more I'll mention at a later time..