Chrys McLaren's Letter

To my darling Grandson, Ruan,

Hello Darling,
This may be hard to hear in places but I hope that the knowledge means we as a species start to acknowledge our wrongs and that this letter can give you hope.
Your Nana is trying her best to help re-write the story our species has written so incorrectly. Humans were given mindsets that celebrated the gathering and storing of wealth and things/objects above the gathering and collection of love; we forgot to recognise our embeddedness and inter-relation to all life and our precious Planet. The drives within us which were once necessary needs, to protect and help us survive took over; the love, bonds and attachments we felt for our families and tribes means we created the 'other' and we became and still are so cruel to them; be they humans or not.
The currently financially the rich and powerful (they go in hand in this era) are ill and do not recognise or see that if we don't change our ways we will kill more and more and more and this scares me; not just for your future but the future of all life.
We are losing other species at much faster rates than when Nana was young when we knew it was happening and when I believed we could make the changes and stop it. It didn't happen and the aforementioned greed took over and now; we are killing other sentient species in massive numbers that our ancestors would never imagined possible.
We are cruel and mean when we don't have to be.
We have lived through and era of oppulence and excess and like spoilt children we do not want to give up the luxuries but we must. As as species we are at a pinnacle-many (still unjustly not all!) have access to food, drinking water, warmth in the winter and cool in the summer, we have access to information and minds that can question, explore and understand that information; I am very scared that we will permit those making decisions for us, those who seem to not recognise the facts that all of the Globes scientists are now telling us; that we are at risk of losing it all.
There are many folks, normal folks like your Nana (that at present tend not to be heard) that understand and want to reverse our bad ways. Many great books and cultures have foreseen a better more loving, compassionate, caring, kind, generous nature within us and envisioned us creating a much better world. I so desperatley wish we will re-write the narrative and make the world beauttiful for you and our future generations. Love you Ruan.
I feel strongly we can turn the tide, we can change our darker ways and we can co-create a future where racism, sexism, negative prejudicial othering and speciesism are a thing of the past. The results of these things such as war, slavery, deforestation, ocean life depletion, and so many other consequential behaviours are gone and only studied in history where the students are in disbelief that these things were ever allowed to happen-like you won't understand that once women didn't have rights in the UK!
We need to self reflect as a species, those in power with money need to understand they were given all they have, that nature is not a commodity but deep within us too, that they are in service to life and therefore must do their very best to protect it and stop the juggernauts of systems and corporations that turn toxic when too large and are based on the fantasy of continued growth. No-one, nothing is in fact better than anything else but our species darling Ruan has a capacity and great abilities and Nana believes we can and must turn this around urgently. Again, love you Ruan. Love life, laugh, dance, play and learn.