ars-et-saliva
david p. eiser
zeitraffer
This hidden longing to return to the inorganic
The paths of men are partly paved with golden stones, partly mud and gravel
tracks cut through the world. Not for everyone who has fallen onto the gold
path this subsoil remains, and only very few of the people who have lived on
earth so far have had the chance to spend their entire lives in the splendor
of this luxury. The great mass have had to defend their lives on the wild, un-
settled paths, if not permanently, then mostly because fate wanted it that way.
From today's perspective, the span of the past that is still reasonably manage-
able is likely to be around 2000 years. In the centuries that have passed, man-
kind has come up with a lot of ideas to be able to lead a life characterized by
security and well-being.
Diligence, diversity of ideas, intelligence and also hardship have helped to sig-
nificantly improve the prosperity of some and others. But despite this, there has
always been the great masses, who have been suppressed and kept as short
as possible mentally or physically. Or both.
After the overcoming of surrender to fate and uncritical faith scientific discover-
ies and social eruptions set new, promising developments in motion, provoked
great strides, raised expectations and hopes for a brighter future, out of the
darkness of the Middle Ages, aristocratic conceit, religious arrogance and
inappropriate rulership.
Again and again, voices emerged calling for a better world. Always what had
been achieved was still not good enough. There were still millions of indivi-
duals who were of the opinion that things had to be improved - by force if
necessary - to finally bring peace to an ever closer world, where in the last
two hundred years the population had exploded and was now approaching
the 8 billion mark.
But there was no end to the setbacks. False prophets and demagogues kept
gaining the upper hand and plunged their peoples into misfortune, leaving
behind wide traces of devastation and destruction and left the traumatized
descendants to restart and rebuild, all as an expression of hopeful expecta-
tions towards security and well-being.
But what has become of the angry cry "Never again war!"? The ten fingers of
both hands are not nearly enough to list all the military operations after WW2.
Even countries that suffered badly from the consequences of the last world war
were and are not in a position to fight with all their might for peace with their
neighbors.
Around the world, there were and still are enough people who present them-
selves as instigators of warlike measures and others who, brainwashed, allow
themselves to be taken in and commanded by them, knowing full well, that it
is always and without exception a game of life and death.
If there was at least a real prospect of peace and prosperity in sight ... if there
were a reward on the horizon that might not exactly justify the effort, but would
make it worthwhile... if, yes, if the end might justify the means... but no. In the
last 200 years, military actions have not led to any significant global peace suc-
cesses. Locally well, but in the course of the decades some peace achievements
have eroded and were replaced by renewed rearmament and, above all, a will-
ingness to act militarily.
And then there is overpopulation and with it the reckless exploitation of our pla-
net's resources. By the beginning of May 2023 Germany will have used up its
annual share of resources. If all countries lived like us, we would need three
earths to grow what we consume.
At some point, the question will arise as to how we could all feed ourselves,
how and where we could all live, how and where we would find work to finance
our lives...
But without delay, scientific discoveries keep coming to light, the application of
which could transform the agricultural sector into an industrialized global enter-
prise, equipped with the appropriate technical aids and artificial fertilizers, as
well as highly bred plants and animals to combat hunger in the world, but all
at the expense of natural resources, which were initially used thoughtlessly,
then irretrievably exploited against our better judgement and thus endangered
our livelihoods on this planet.
We have been walking blindly into this disaster for at least 50 years. Blinded
again and again by inventions and discoveries that seem to promise to solve the
problems of the future, but ultimately do nothing to stop the waste of resources,
the littering of the earth and the surrounding space and thus bring us closer to a
global emergency every day.
We see all this, but we do not do what we should do: renounce limitless growth,
refrain from violating natural balances, refrain from consumption of resources
that cannot be replenished in our lifetime.
The environment brought out of balance by human activity already poses a di-
rect threat to the personal lives of thousands and thousands of people. Displace-
ment and flight have become the order of the day. Personal future can no longer
be actively shaped for millions of people. The expected population migrations are
leading to defensive measures and massive integration problems because the
refugees are neither welcome nor are there any accommodation or jobs available.
Instead of enabling all displaced persons and refugees to feed themselves, the
rich countries that are still functioning offer billion-dollar aid programs that are
only enough for a tent roof and, with luck, a warm meal a day, but they do not
give these people a chance to lead a life of their own and to shape their own
future according to their own ideas. They are degraded to permanent lethargic
recipients of outside help.
All this knowledge and foreboding will not help us to eliminate the problems we
have caused, mitigate the consequences and avoid future unreasonableness.
There will always and everywhere be people who are not prepared to curb their
greed, limit their lust for domination and confront the overburdening of the planet.
And they will always find enough fellows who will encourage them to simply carry
on, against their better judgment.
We have triggered a catastrophic development and are already in a phase whose
progress can no longer be slowed down, let alone be prevented.
In view of this global threat scenario, the world community should actually find
rules to avoid further damage and mitigate the negative development (aborting
will no longer be possible).
But it doesn't happen. We carry on as usual and risk death and destruction in-
stead of fighting together for peace and well-being.
What is it that prevents us from following rational insights? What is behind
this looking away, this ignoring, this denial? Is our bad conscience not bothering
us? What do we use to justify our inaction to our descendants, who have no
chance of being at the mercy of this adversity? Are we not ashamed to leave be-
hind a world that will become unusable for millions and millions of people who
will have nothing left than to suffer from the consequences of our ignorance?
What power is it that is able to ignore intellectual knowledge in the face of such
a threat and ultimately lead to self-destruction, a return to the inorganic?
It is probably the built-in genetic switch that we know exists and forces us from
the very beginning to come to terms with the realization that our lives are limited,
even if we are (still) getting older.
We do not avoid dangers, we enter life-threatening road traffic every day, we pro-
duce weapons with which we could eliminate life on earth several times and go
into the field to fight supposed enemies, drink vast quantities of alcohol, take nico-
tine, cannabidiol, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and other poisons in order to release
happiness hormones, create deadly fine dust pollution zones, turn the oceans in-
to rubbish and garbage dumps and destroy its inhabitants, from whom we should
be living on...
A competition has broken out between the peoples who all along "have everything"
and those who want to have as much, and of everything.
And those who raise their finger and shout: "Resist the beginnings. It is not wise to
take, but to do without!" will not be heard, because greed controls this action, not
reason.
After life has come into being, it tries to keep itself alive, Life initially as a functional
task. But life means fighting for itself, daily, endlessly recurring, ultimately exhaust-
ing, because the knowledge of the finite nature of existence becomes more and
more conscious, and the time of departure is drawing ever closer and the prospect
of inner peace and tranquillity becomes ever more attractive.
Why do people go to war in their thousands, even though they know that only a
fraction of them will come back unharmed and a large proportion will not at all?
They could survive if they simply ignored the weapons. But they go off and let
themselves be crippled beaten and killed in a slaughter that knows no mercy.
In these situations, the longing for a return to the inorganic breaks out towards
eternal rest in order to fulfill the mission of life by destroying the organic material.
According to Schopenhauer:
"...our existence is... to be regarded as an aberration from which to return is re-
demption... The purpose of our existence is in fact nothing else than the realization
that we had better not be there..."
6-5-2023
© dpe
260724