When I wrote The Human Race, I wanted it to portray something I had learned on one of our last excursions to Iceland: that this mesmerisingly beautiful country is being torn apart. Literally. One half of the island sits atop the Eurasian Tectonic Plate while the other half straddles the North American Plate. The two are slowly but inexorably separating at the rate of one inch per year. You can actually see it happening.

Þingvellir National Park is littered with consequential tears in the earth, and we were fortunate enough to scramble inside one that must have been 20 feet deep and 10 wide (and this was 10 years ago, so now the void will be much deeper). It was an eerie yet thought-provoking experience; in Iceland, Mother Nature rules with a fiery fist.

Where would each half of this island be in a thousand years?

Ten thousand years?

One hundred thousand years?

And where would that leave the human race?

We have only really prospered as a race for the last 10,000 years.  Could we last another 10,000? Or even longer? Aside from challenging my limited maths and geography skills, these questions struck me as the perfect contrast between mankind and our environment. One is rushing along at a million miles an hour. The other has a steady natural rhythm, which has continued for millions of years and will continue for another billion or so, while the human race flames out like an angry Icarus.

Our Icelandic adventure was a 35^th birthday gift from my lovely wife, and it had taken us everywhere: The Blue Lagoon. Gullfoss Waterfall. Hallgrimskirkja Church. Strokkur Geysir. Snæfellsjökull Glacier. But it was there, in the freezing canyon that inspiration came.

The Earth’s sedate pace belies the relatively frantic pace of modern life. Our lives are largely dictated by technology, which is in turn driven by humanity’s unique ability to learn, invent and evolve. Consider our use of fire.
The spear.
The wheel.
Ships.
Canals.
Steam trains.
The telegraph.
Radio.
Telephones.
Cars.
Propeller driven planes.
The jet engine.
The Internet.

We live fast because technology allows us to, and the pace of modern life seems to quicken with every passing year. This was the moment when the The Human Race began taking shape.

What would the ultimate technological advance be for our civilisation? One that would catapult the human race into a whole new realm that would make our current pace seem like the horse and cart in comparison.

One that is not fazed by the ever-dominant Mother Nature and her dormant lava fields, active volcanoes, jittery geology, geothermal power, Northern Lights, the eternal sunshine of summer and the permanent blackness of winter.

We can’t yet escape her embrace.  But maybe someday soon…

Finally, I can’t help noting that The Human Race took me ten years to write – but the sequel is very nearly finished after just 18 months. Is this yet more evidence that the pace of the earth is rapidly quickening..?

This post was selected for the 5^th Byteful Travel Blog Carnival, hosted by Byteful Travel and Traveler’s Show & Tell – Sun, Sand & Savory Dishes, hosted by Mental Mosaic.

Image: Iceland – Reykjavik by helgabj.

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