REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

We who live in the temperate zone enjoy four seasons. The annual display of Fall colors brings on a mix of very deep and mysterious feelings that must harken back to a very primitive time in human history.

DNA and fossil records trace the origins of humankind to the tropics of Africa, where there are basically only two seasons, dry and wet. When foraging men first migrated beyond the tropics, the shock of witnessing all the leaves color, die, and fall off trees had to have been extremely disturbing. Their resultant longing for home, their women, their children, must have been overwhelming. Undoubtedly, many of us still share their predisposition for the evenness of a tropical climate when Fall colors bring on the melancholy, apprehension, longing, and confusion we experience today.

A Pew/Associated Press poll published this week disquietingly sites a 20 percentage point drop in U.S. citizen's belief in global warming, down to 57% from a previously polled 77%. Their analysis suggests economic factors like high unemployment and a sluggish uncertain economy are distracting people's concern for the environment. But, one can't help wondering if perhaps a wave of autumn melancholia might be prompting the thought that perhaps a warmer climate might not be so bad.

Silly humans. "Get back! Get back! Get back to where you once belonged." So universal the sentiment, so strong the motivation, so shallow and irrational the reasoning.