If you lay out a time line of the earth on a football field (100 yards,) human in some form have existed for only the last five inches and Homo sapiens for only a little over an inch.
Even the concept of a time line is a human construct. The universe doesn’t concern itself with time. The universe just is – perhaps. We have invented time to explain our human existence in some lineal context. And, we invent gods in our own image to convince ourselves that we matter and that we are eternal.
The truth is that if we could back up evolution to the very beginning there is no reason to believe that it would evolve in the same manner with the same results. There are too many variables and happenstances that led to our present results; the odds of it happening exactly the same way again would be infinitesimal.
Our petty paltry lives have no meaning. We are here today and gone tomorrow. Old cemeteries are full of the bones of unknowns – people who have no legacy other than linage that will some day be bones with no legacy other than linage – perhaps – and then perhaps not… All our accomplishments are gauged on a human scale – and we are by definition an accident of chaos.
My great-great grandfather lived in western Kentucky among Southern sympathizers. He broke tradition and joined the Union Army dying in Shiloh, leaving one son and a young wife.
One hundred and fifty years later I am the linage of his existence – big deal – and I soon shall soon be gone.
If the human race had improved and had moved to some utopian plane we might divine some purposeful meaning for the dead gone by – or at least an excuse for our existence in a reference to human good. But, we are the same violent, belligerent, destructive, consumer life form, only now with advanced technology and more powerful weapons.
Look at the world: there is no humanity in our race. Religions, political factions, racial prejudice, geographic identity and personal greed drive our human community to constant odds and contention.
In reality it is all for naught. We can not as a life form survive. As much as we deny it, our existence is temporary – brief in time that doesn’t exist.
Are we remarkable in our technology and our art? Yes – at least by our own values. But does it matter? No.
We are here by chance. Yesterday doesn’t exist – or tomorrow. The now – this moment – is all we have. There is no guarantee of a next…
I spent a lifetime in the military and another lifetime since then. I have had a number of near-death experiences. There is no country and no politics and no religion and no philosophy worth dying for. Death is the end. What a waste it would have been.
Do not carry the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or woes and troubles of the moment on your back. They don’t matter in the long run; for tomorrow there will be new dramas and new outrages. You only have this one brief existence, don’t squander it with unfulfilled desires for an existence that does not and can never exist
Take advantage of the accident of life. Look at the colors around you; smell the smells; be aware of the temperature and wind and weather; marvel in the life forms in your ecosystem. Enjoy sex and food and drink and life. Do no harm.
The meaning of life is
There is no meaning of life
The life or Brian
How marvelous,
How wonderful,
I chop wood,
I carry water.
Zen poem
To see the world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour
William Blake
Have a good day
the Ol’Buzzard
I'm here for the camping and fishing, and at one time, the screwing, but my dick is getting lazy.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the booze...
I like Blake's lines.
ReplyDeleteWhy are we here? We are here, as all life is, so we will be here tomorrow. The sole driving force of life is to pass on those genes, to pass on those genes, to pass on those genes. To what end, no one knows. Everyone has their own ideas and as you say, religions were invented partly at least to explain those ends. Are humans different from wolves or camels or gophers or frogs? Perhaps so. Or not. Species have disappeared in the past and ours may well too. We are not even the first to disappear because we are too successful and destroyed our habitat. Maybe you are right: eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.