Dinosaurs of our Time

I have chosen to name this chronicle “Dinosaurs of our Time”

because I am a true believer that dinosaurs aren’t extinct, yet. They are going extinct.

Let’s stop to think about a blue whale

or a white shark. Personally, it’s like I almost can’t believe these amazing creatures are still alive! And in their natural habitat, that is. While we live our mundane lives, dwell on trivialities of daily routines, blue whales swim in the oceans. I repeat: blue whales are swimming in the oceans as I type these words.

There is only one word that comes to mind

when thinking about them: privilege. We (still) have the privilege to live in a world (and time!) where there are (a few) blue whales around. Privilege, is what I feel when I imagine their magnitude, their slow and elegant moves, their majestic, terrifying and ancient presence. Ancient! That’s the word. They are so old. So very old and so very big, they are “underwater dinosaurs”.

We visit museums

to learn about pre-historical times and their fabulous T-Rex’s. We watch them in 3D films at the cinema, at home, in animation. There is a natural fascination with them. But could that be because they never existed in the same time as us, humans? Because, if we really think about it, a blue whale is as magnificent as a dinosaur, is it not? Maybe if dinosaurs were still alive and blue whales weren’t, we would worship the whales instead?

Just because

they live in the oceans and not on solid ground, that doesn’t stop me from thinking about them, care for them, be amazed by them, be conscious about them. Just because we don’t cross paths on our daily lives, meet up for coffee or just because they are out of sight, that doesn’t mean I don’t see them. And while we ago about our mundane lives, the dinosaurs of our time continue to struggle for life and survival, submersed.

We all want

to know what the meaning of life is. Well, for sure life has no meaning if that means to destroy what is most beautiful: life itself. Could the meaning of life therefore be simply to shift our consciousness? To become aware that we still live in a blue planet with blue whales? That one day, films will be made about them, Jurassic Ocean! That we will only be able to see them in documentaries, fiction, 3D, books and children’s stories, like Pinoquio’s?

Then, they will be famous at last.

Like the artists that were only considered masters long after their death, such as Van Gogh. Perhaps then, people will say “Could you imagine diving into the sea knowing that in those same waters, miles and miles away, there were blue whales swimming too?” And children will ask, amazed, at their parents, “Mom, Dad, how was it to live with blue whales?”

The irony of it all is

they can still answer to that question, and using the PRESENT tense.