This response was
written in reply to a wonderfully put question asking why we should
continue existing in the absence of a benevolent creator.
The
reason, I think, why we might exist in the face of oblivion is
because we are, in addition to whatever soul or mind you may posit, a
living organism.
Why does moss grow on the windowsill? Its life seems futile to us, it
continues to grow. Nothing inside of the moss will prevent it from
growing and sustaining itself. We must be removed from the brute
life-force inherent in all creatures of biology if we are suggesting
that lack of cosmic relevance should indicate an early exit! This
'will to live against any odds' must surely be our axiom - the
starting point, or truthism, upon which we build all else. This is
the first and most obvious point. You exist because some part of you
is 'programmed' to continue existing.
You breathe so that you may
continue breathing. It is as simple as that really. You do not need a
justification for this brute existence. Having said that, life
requires sustaining. It is not a given, and we must endlessly nourish
ourselves to cling on to existence. I suppose in that sense we must
actively choose what is best, or sufficient, to maintain ourselves.
Fortunately we have the apparatus to do so - a body!
Now you have life, but
there is still a great expanse of time before you. What you live for
is up to you; it cannot be generalized, handed down, or forced upon.
Hopefully it is something artistic, self-caused and heals the wounds
of Man. Hopefully it is not celebrity, fame and wealth. Again,
another simplistic answer, but it is hard to say much else. If you
respect philosophy, you respect your readers ability to work it out
for themselves. In this sense, there is not a universal answer to be
prescribed to all, only enrichment and refinement by posing clever
questions. Maybe somewhere down the line we will coalesce into a
beautiful whole.
Short and sweet, a
succinct story -
The fact is seventy years,
in the context of our species, seems long enough to do some decent
stuff. Those seventy years are not nothing. Perhaps it is just about
the right amount of time for us. A succinct story is better than a
long and convoluted one.
Those who believe in an
omnipotent creator often see this world as a sideshow for 'better
things to come'. It is all about the sequel! Nothing they can do in
the 'finite world' can compare to the 'infinite' and the
transcendent. Yet to claim that our immediate experience of the world
is completely and utterly nothing seems bizarre to me. I have no such
pretensions. This is all there is. Responsibility lies with Man. Deliverance of justice lies with Man. Ideology and belief lies with
Man. Creativity and the world-narrative lies with Man. Everything
that is found, is found upon Earth. There is no philosophical
position as life-affirming as this. Oblivion gives us ultimate
freedom and responsibility: a weight heavier than the cross, a sphere
greater than that which Atlas had to haul around upon his shoulders.
For the former was a miracle worker who had the promise of eternal
paradise, and the latter was a gargantuan Titan! We are just ordinary
human beings facing down the abyss, alone.
I
don't see why we need benevolent creators above our comprehension. I
can't understand how we can practice absolute moralities which were
beyond our ability to create. Is Man not enough? What about
benevolent order and flexible morality which can adapt with the
times? These things can be ours in
this life,
if only we were not such lazy, abysmal thinkers and
mass-underachievers.
Oblivion -
Oblivion
may or may not be nothing; the total annihilation of personality. We
do not know, and may never do so. But oblivion comes after the fact.
Oblivion needn't concern one for the present, and worrying about it
will not alter its inevitability. To bring the ancient Greek
philosopher Epicurus into the fold: "Death
means nothing to us...when we exist, death is not yet present, and
when death is present, then we do not exist."
Do
we truly live in the shadow of oblivion? I do not think so. You have governments and corporations whose
plans see no further than the next election or boom-bust cycle. You
have next door neighbours whose concerns lie no further than
organizing a birthday party and paying the bills. And guarantee
yourself that any so-called deep-thinker does not confront their
mortality every single day. Even the word death
carries
no weight until it is truly comprehended, and that is very rare
indeed; occuring in spells which catch you unawares (oblivion is just
like any other fascinating thing we humans do without realizing it,
such as devouring organic matter and turning it into
us,
absorbing vitamins from sunlight, processing waste and making it come
out, and so forth).
Oblivion, properly thought
through, is like a sleep from which there is no waking. This is not
easy to come to terms with, and may never be fully accepted. But why?
If I may end on a wild speculation, our species inherited the ability
to comprehend death rather late in day, and we are not designed to
fully come to terms with it. For once we fully understood nothingness in
our minds, how would we return to something?
Selim 'Selim' Talat
