Sometimes it’s hard to decide which way the world will turn – we’ll either save ourselves and tell the stories of how we did it to the stars as we enter a new age or we’ll dance in the ashes as we burn ourselves to dust.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell which way world will turn.
There has always been something of the monster in Mankind.
Something of the beast.
I won’t say that Man has ever been better than it is now, in fact as a whole I would give the race of Man a bit of credit in that we have evolved and are more empathetic and more sympathetic than once we were but we’re not that far from the beast that still lies within. We don’t lynch people openly but we still carry those feelings with us, dragging words like rope and actions like trees. We point our fingers at one another and cluck our tongues knowing full well the darkness within us. Ah, but it’s easier to pass judgment on others than it is to shine the light of wisdom within.
We are full of such darkness that it is hard to keep it contained and in our enlightenment, in our cultural, our anthropological evolution we have realized that power is truly the most intoxicating of addictions. The power over others, and over their fates. We have created systems within systems to control one another, to hold one another down, and to create an illusion within ourselves that we are the master of a game that is out of control. The System, the great, grand system we have created of economy and industry and politics and religion, each one intertwined into the other so deeply that instead of a forest we have one tree within whose shadow we all dwell. A system of socio-religious-economy. We have a system that feeds on debt so that the children of our children of our children will still be dragging our bodies behind them, arm in arm with our children, and our parents, an infernal daisy-chain that reaches to the horizon. And it isn’t better here or there or there or here. The world is a machine and the machine is rusted. Some places do this better, some do that better, but in the end we are slaves to systems that are run by people so out of touch with the world that they see only so far as the end of their toes and no further. Man, as a race, is doomed until we as a species realize that we are all part of an ecosystem that must work together in order to survive. This cannot be us or them or it will be none.
Yet here we are at the precipice of discovering truths in the cosmos that we have yearned to know. We are learning about the world we inhabit and the universe around us. Even in our disillusionment we still gasp at the wonders that still exist. Wonders that do not defy a deity but which force one to come to terms with the notion that perhaps it is not for us to pen, define, or contain a deity but should instead marvel at its wonders. Ah, but ours are human gods and they care not for the stars and not for the strange and not for those who do not worship them. We have lost the meaning of religion, the heart of it that unites at its essence – Love. Not necessarily the love of man but the love of Man, the love of the species because without us there is no god, not if it is but a human god. We are so unsure of our standing, so desperate to prove that ours is the One god, the True god that we spend our time decrying other religions and others who don’t hew to our religion. We wallow in the offal of our enemies instead of basking in the glory of faith.
Faith isn’t about telling others what you believe but is believing in a thing with your entire being, believing so much that what others think or believe doesn’t matter. We don’t need to protect our gods, they could do that fine by themselves.
But it isn’t just that. We are hate breeding hate breeding hate. We are so frustrated by ourselves, our debt, our depression, our anger, our lack of power that we are finding ways to allay those things. Children’s sports have become the battlegrounds for frustrated parents. Videogame culture has become a symbol for childish misogyny. Online forums are glimpses into the cultural Id as we say things in anonymity that we’d never say to one another in real life. We want personal forgiveness for our own sins and transgressions but want shame of others. We want anyone we feel has offended us or wronged us to be punished, humiliated, and destroyed. There is no such thing as an error of judgment in others, there is only the wrong they have done, and the price they must pay. We cannot allow others to live in peace, no, we must delve into their lives and pull apart the things they love, they worship, and they believe. If they are not us then they are them, and that means they’re against us. We are often no better than those we hate because we preach hate of our own, and intolerance, and want only to convert or destroy, there is no middle ground anymore. We are fighting one another because we are desperately afraid of the changes that are happening, the rights people are getting, and the way that the status quo is changing. We are in the middle of a social earthquake and we are trying desperately to hold on against it. We don’t trust one another anymore and that’s dangerous. It’s dangerous that as Americans we feel a need to carry guns as if our society has become lawless and deadly, not thinking that those guns make others feel that way about us. Not worrying how others feel with these weapons on us as we strut around showing how dangerous we are. We are going mad.
The list goes on and on.
The inmates are running the asylum.
And why?
Because we are in a time of change. We are at the edge of another evolutionary step. We are at the edge of the map. It’s all so frightening. The world is changing so fast now that we can’t keep up. We create more laws, more rules, more restrictions, and most of all more hate but it won’t stop the change. We can destroy the past, we can burn the present, but there is still a future, the question is whether we go into it together or we are borne unto it on the ashes of our vast kingdoms. There’s still time. This isn’t about Them or Us, it’s about EVERYONE. It’s about finding ways to work together and to keep moving forward. We are surrounded by hate but that doesn’t overpower the hope, the love, and the bravery that exists. It is easier to hate, to hold grudges, and to dominate but that doesn’t make that more powerful. We can kill one another, chop the heads off of our enemies and desecrate their bodies but the things in us that go unseen, the flowers that only hopes light can nurture are still there.
And that’s the key to everything, the undying hope that Man was born with and which will remain until we are gone. Hope is the thing that unites us because all of us, ALL of us hold something we hope for, we can dress it up in blood and the skin of our enemies, we can forge it like an axe, and we can fool ourselves into thinking that what we want is grand and large and ruthless but our hopes, our real hopes are always there, buried in our hearts and sometimes hidden from ourselves, we just need something to remind us that we are all one people, one planet, and one species and if we don’t find a way to stumble forward then we will blow away and the only way the universe will know we were ever hear is they will hear the echoes of our screams across the years and see the brief eruption of light as our beautiful home blinks out of existence.
Rise or fall.
This isn’t an easy life, an easy world, an easy age but it is all ours and we have a responsibility to tomorrow and the thousand tomorrows ahead of us to find a way to survive long enough to build a future for all of us. Maybe it’s a dream, maybe it’s a fiction, but more than anything it’s a hope and that’s a powerful thing.
…c…
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 