It has been an interesting few weeks. I read, "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. It is set in a dark and dismal world. A place destroyed by what the reader assumes is nuclear war. The story focuses on a boy and his father trying to merely survive in a brutal world; a place and time where cannabilism is rampant as food sources are beyond scarce. The sole
act of grace the father bestows upon his child is a gun with one bullet, as if the greatest gift he can give his child is the chance to escape this terrible existence. There are no creature comforts in this world, only the will to live...but for what? The earth is dead. The grounds will not produce crops. The oceans are acidic.
So, what do they have to look forward to? What kind of quality of life will his child inherit? This is all there is. Nihilism. At the very core of human existence is the basic law of nature. The parent bestows all the wisdom to their offspring, so that the offspring has a chance at survival. There is no point to human existence but that basic law, and when all the pretense of modern life are stripped away...no more creature comforts...you are faced with the inevitable conclusion that you live and then you die. That is it. Religion and politics
serve no purpose in the scheme of things...
While at the same time, I have been listening to the Dave Matthews Band. Their new CD is called
"Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King." This is as we know an excercise in dealing with the death of a close friend. Whereas McCarthy would say that this life is it. Dave Matthews turns to religious themes to cope. Throughout the album, the listener can hear religious connotations delivered in earnest by Dave Matthews. He chooses to focus on what is important in his estimation: faith, family, and friends...a common rationale when faced
with mortality. It is obvious to me that Matthews spent hours pouring over his emotions. He took the time to craft the lyrics to capture these emotions, and this is by far the most intense and best written album of his career.
On top of all of this, I have spent a great deal of time talking with one of my closest friends. He has a PHD in Psychology, and is an expert in the field. He gave me many things to think about, which I need to share. The first is the idea of collective unconcious. He equated it to the same mechanism that makes geese migrate south for the winter, or the same mechanism that send millions of green turtles into the ocean at precisely the same time after they are born. What
I call Soul, he calls collective unconcious. Some ancient code embedded into our DNA that gives our species the best possible chance to survive.
He feels incredible peace of mind knowing that this is all there is. He believes that it is impossible for the human mind to comprehend infinity. The universe is never ending, time is
never ending and it is therefore impossible for humans to comprehend that once they die that is it. They won't know they are dead as they will no longer be conscious. Likewise, it is very difficult to accept the death of those we share our lives with. The only way humans have been able to cope with this is to make up fantastical tales. "They are not gone, they are in heaven"
Where do I stand on all of this...I don't know. I want to believe in some force controlling my fate. I want to find peace. I guess in the end it doesn't matter. You live and you die. In the middle, you try and contribute to humanity. You surround yourself with like minded people and experience life. When it is your time, you hope that you can look back and be at peace with all that you have done. You can't concern yourself with what happens next.
-Ray
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In response to your comments, quickly, as thought provoking as they are, nowhere in that thought process is there a proof that collective unconscious hasn't been "programmed" by a higher power. And, for that matter, there is no proof that a soul exists. There are reasonable doubts and lots of questions for both sides. For example, one could argue "against" faith and say that we love a woman so we can reproduce and survive as a species. But one couldn't argue "for" nihilism in the same fashion - if the natural order is just to live and die and nothing else, then we'd just bang females, make babies and make more if any didn't survive. Why didn't we evolve not to care when someone dies?Even if you say that people are a product of evolution, as an argument against a creator or faith or higher power, evolution could be the tools by which that higher power "made" things. Just because limited human cognition has to put it in terms of how WE would "make" something, doesn't mean that's how it happened. I have a hard time concluding that something doesn't exist just because it wasn't done how I would have done it or how I want to understand it. If there is a Creator, then one would think that his power isn't isolated to what is done outside of his creation. If he created it, then why aren't we crediting him with the natural happenings within that system? Why do we only see God in what we can't understand? That's not to say that God says "Hurricane time" like a person might say "I'm going to the store". But if he created a self-sustaining system, then when something happens naturally, it was still by his design. So when people talk about faith, it's in trusting that what that Creator says is not only because he wants it that way, like a person might handle his creation, but best for our lives within that system - even if we can't figure it. Maybe we haven't the foggiest idea of how good life could be. People talk about God like some vending machine or miracle worker and that's all he's capable or responsible for. If he is described as the being that created the world, why do both religious and agnostic/atheist people spend so much time trying to describe God as a being that dualistically lives outside of a nature and order that the believer would say he created...as if nature and law are a separate entity? If creation is from him, why don't we include the natural laws and science as his too? Unfortunately, organized religion, i think, falls into this hypocrisy when they describe God - separating nature and God. I have a different perspective, I guess.
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