A Thing Isn’t Beautiful Because It Lasts

The world is a toilet.

So begins my latest philosophical journey, and ends in a line from the latest Avengers movie.

It’s [(was) ~Ed.] late, so I’ll try and keep this brief - but if you know anything about my blogs by now - it is that they are almost painfully not brief…

The discussion starts with the concept of humanity as a selfish self-propagating species that has not contributed anything to the planet that isn’t a means to an end.

Arguably you could say that about every other species that has roamed the earth - but as I am lacking in direct primary evidence of that fact, I will restrict my viewpoint to the whole of human history for now.

Yes, everyday, there are good deeds done, and uplifting news to be read, and generally positive things - as we see them - do in fact happen. But for who’s benefit - either our own as a species; or - more likely - the benefit of the privileged few?

And yet what else are we supposed to do? If the world is to be equalised, then we should massacre millions of our own kind, and encourage the endangered species to proliferate. Or end our species full stop to avoid the complete destruction of the planet {although Mother Nature is most likely to do that herself any time an ice age is needed - remember the dinosaurs and their cities of steel and motor vehicles?!?}.

Perhaps the most ultimate aim of medicine is to extend our lives - almost indefinitely? - and to sustain a more and more ageing population.
And yet we know that the planet is ‘at capacity’ in some places; and woefully under-supported in others.

And why do some people get to live for 5 or 10 more years thanks to advances in modern science and medicine? And others will die either in childhood or - for the ‘lucky few’ - in adulthood through a simple lack of access to clean water?

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How do we judge those two extremes?

Well the answer is we judge them ourselves - from the only perspective we have.

Lacking a higher moral power, that is all we can do - make subjective judgements about the true nature of things, whilst exposing our natural prejudices to anyone who might be in a position to observe and criticise.

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So, again; what should we be doing as individual human beings?

Our instincts tell us to survive; our basic functions tell us to scavenge food and sustain our bodies with energy for as long as our bodies will support us. For the majority of us (? I actually don’t know what percentage of adults go on to reproduce, versus those who choose not to) we continue our genetic lineage/our family heritage - and for the very privileged of us all, we get to live our lives of relative comfort, enjoyment and safety.

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But we’re still looking out for number one. Ourself. Either humanity as a species; or you - me - our individual, subjective, limited selves.

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And why is that a bad thing?

Well for one thing it limits what we can do to the selfish things listed above. I mean to give more thought to this in a separate conversation - can a truly self-less act be done; and if so, to the benefit of a life-form other than our own?

And why that second qualifier?

Moral/humane/selfless acts do happen in the human world - quite a famous and unsubstantiated example is Christ on the cross; but even that is for the benefit of humanity (or at least the Christian faithful) - even our biggest stories still focus on the concept of humans being ‘bigger’ than the fragile existence we have.
Worthy of something more…

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I don’t harbour false hope of something more. I realised a long time ago that my own experience is the true extent of everything, and attempting to influence beyond that is perhaps our greatest folly.

However - and here comes the science bit - what that gives us is knowledge of our limitations (and creates fear in those who don’t understand, and often drives those to exploit others); knowledge of our own humanity; and the truth that one day very very soon, all of this will be naught - and for what?

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Humanity is a scourge of the planet Earth in much the same way the dinosaurs were. But also in a way that the fires that raged at the heart of this planet before any life was possible, were a scourge. Or in a way that the vast interstellar distances that broke up the universe were after the big bang - back when the universe was a nice and simple singularity and nothing had a bad word to say about anybody.

It is a matter of perspective - if you envision the planet as being a superior organism or a being ‘bigger’ than anything humanity ‘is’, then we are quite rightly a blight that will eventually become dust in the stars once more - and maybe a whole new species will get their chance to shine for a few millennia - before the Sun shines far too brightly, and consumes all within the solar system, and even beyond.

The only perspective I have is that of a 31 year old male living in the early decades of the third thousand of years since some bloke got nailed to a tree for saying we should try and be nice to each other.

I know my limitations - I cannot change the world in a meaningful sense; and I don’t think there is any sense in trying. Which is not to say I live in defeat - we are confronted by battles every single day; some of us are lucky to only have a few - I see that I can try and be what is a very human concept; a good person - but is that enough?

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I’ll finish briefly on the Avengers quote.

I’m pretty sure that ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ defines the quality of beauty rather well, and I am not sure that I have fully understood much about that book (although I feel like I share some of its ideas).

But if everything were permanent, and remained just the way it was, or is - then there would be no beauty.

The blue marble picture above was a snapshot in time and space of our planet a few decades ago - I’m sure there are terrifying contrasting pictures with a much smaller ice cap now.

The very fact that so much has changed about the planet - and for it’s inhabitants - since that picture was taken; and the fact that things will continue to change; is why humanity persists - because we have a sense of time lapsing.

Deep deep down we know there is an end to all this - not just on an interplanetary level - but, more pressingly; on a personal, individual level.
Which is why we escape to other worlds, through cinema, film, etc. and why certain people fight for new and better things in the world.

Because we want a chance to see what happens next.

No thing can know why we or any other being, planet, supercluster are here.

We have to try and answer why.

Because if we don’t bother to ask the question - how can you say you have lived?

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Well that was one of those normally wishy-washy ways in which I end a blog post; but I just wanted to wheel back to the title of this piece. To try and get two wishy-washy sentimental endings for the price of one (think of this as the mid-credits sequence…).

You and I aren’t going to last forever. And we’re not even going to come close to answering any of the big questions [what’s to say there is even an answer? 42 is good enough…]

But knowing that there are no real limits to what our minds can explore; and there are more than enough things for our bodies to explore - that is where the beauty of existence lies.

Nothing last forever; not even for a second.

And there is beauty in that after all.

And all we have is what is left of the future…

#suitablypretentiousnonsense