George Carlin - I Gave up on my Species

Henry Colman and Jenni Matz conducted the interview in Venice, CA on December 17, 2007.

George Carlin who was one of the Great Philosophers of the 20th Century discusses the state of the world in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. 

We are on a nice downward glide. I call it circling the drain. And the circles get smaller and smaller and faster and faster. And you watch the sink empty. Huish!

I then we'll be gone. And that's fine. I welcome it. I wish I could live 1000 years to watch it happen. From a distance - so I can see it all.

I remember back in the late 1990's, Seung Sahn Dae Jong Sa was answering questions after a Dharma Talk at Dharma Zen Center in Los Angeles. One of the students asked him how we could all work towards "world peace." Seung Sahn replied, "I think if you ask all the animals of the planet, they will say, 'world peace only possible when all humans beings are dead.'" 

Carlin plays with the same line here, and I am paraphrasing that it is important to save yourself and not the planet because the planet will still be here long after all the humans have died. And he really makes a point with this statement;

We have to change ourselves. And we'll never do that. Because of the dollars now. Cause everybody wants a dollar and a toy. Everybody's got a telephone that will make pancakes and rub your balls. So nobody wants to rock the boat. Nobody wants to change anything.

 Enjoy the wise ones around you while they are alive, because you will miss them greatly once they pass on.