Beyond the fields we know
I'm slowly losing interest in human politics. Not the awareness of them, which has me scared green, but rather all feeling that it matters, that I can have any significant effect on the world by doing anything about them, or that I even have any significant stake in the human world.
Over the years, as I've continued learning all I could about the biological sciences and the living world, I've come to see humanity, and thus myself, as parts of the biological universe, no more and no less so than any other species, any other individuals. While humanity does have a niche in the body-ecology of our world -- i.e., somehow, some way, providing a means by which Earthly life can reach worlds of others stars and establish itself there before the living Earth herself finally perishes of whatever cause -- the chances that we will fulfill that niche and thereby pay our debt to the rest of Earth's life before we leave the stage for good are looking dimmer and dimmer every day. In the fact of that, I have real trouble understanding why I should care what happens to this species, or, certainly, about human politics.
Yes, I know -- everything we do has a profound impact on our world's life, especially those things driven by our politics. But I can feel Apocalypse approaching, and beyond that none of our Earthly concerns will matter, and I know there is nothing I can do about. Getting mixed up in politics just to please others, without any real conviction about it, would be about the most futile activity in the world. Realpolitik demands strong involvement to be effective at all, and that requires that one has an emotional stake in what one is doing. Which I don't. I don't even have one in my own life any more, let alone issues and activities such as political ones, and that isn't likely to change, ever.
I am so very, very tired. If anything, I feel like some small Late-Permian reptile who, exhausted from trying to avoid the fogs and mists and clouds of hydrogen sulfide and methane rolling inland from the sea, to find food and water for itself in a landscape where everything is dying and sweet, pure water is increasingly scarce, to find or make shelter for against the blazing heat of the day and the few large predators still roaming the land, just wants to find a place where it can curl up and die undisturbed. A psychotherapist once told my adoptive mother that my circumstances from birth on were so damaged that it really would have been kinder to have euthanized me within days of birth. He was right. I've never been able to make a real place for myself in the human world, one worth living in. I have contributed to it -- a little -- with my writing and similar things. But none of it ever got me a real home, a good career, a mate, a situation in which I would have dared to bring children into the world, or any of the other things that make life worth living. The biggest mystery of all is, why do I keep going? I know it's for nothing, so why continue? Perhaps it's just the natural tendency of living things to cling to life as long as possible, no matter what. But if so, that's all it is. If ever I am to have anything worth a damn, it lies beyond everything I know, beyond life, beyond thought. And I have no idea how to get there.
Over the years, as I've continued learning all I could about the biological sciences and the living world, I've come to see humanity, and thus myself, as parts of the biological universe, no more and no less so than any other species, any other individuals. While humanity does have a niche in the body-ecology of our world -- i.e., somehow, some way, providing a means by which Earthly life can reach worlds of others stars and establish itself there before the living Earth herself finally perishes of whatever cause -- the chances that we will fulfill that niche and thereby pay our debt to the rest of Earth's life before we leave the stage for good are looking dimmer and dimmer every day. In the fact of that, I have real trouble understanding why I should care what happens to this species, or, certainly, about human politics.
Yes, I know -- everything we do has a profound impact on our world's life, especially those things driven by our politics. But I can feel Apocalypse approaching, and beyond that none of our Earthly concerns will matter, and I know there is nothing I can do about. Getting mixed up in politics just to please others, without any real conviction about it, would be about the most futile activity in the world. Realpolitik demands strong involvement to be effective at all, and that requires that one has an emotional stake in what one is doing. Which I don't. I don't even have one in my own life any more, let alone issues and activities such as political ones, and that isn't likely to change, ever.
I am so very, very tired. If anything, I feel like some small Late-Permian reptile who, exhausted from trying to avoid the fogs and mists and clouds of hydrogen sulfide and methane rolling inland from the sea, to find food and water for itself in a landscape where everything is dying and sweet, pure water is increasingly scarce, to find or make shelter for against the blazing heat of the day and the few large predators still roaming the land, just wants to find a place where it can curl up and die undisturbed. A psychotherapist once told my adoptive mother that my circumstances from birth on were so damaged that it really would have been kinder to have euthanized me within days of birth. He was right. I've never been able to make a real place for myself in the human world, one worth living in. I have contributed to it -- a little -- with my writing and similar things. But none of it ever got me a real home, a good career, a mate, a situation in which I would have dared to bring children into the world, or any of the other things that make life worth living. The biggest mystery of all is, why do I keep going? I know it's for nothing, so why continue? Perhaps it's just the natural tendency of living things to cling to life as long as possible, no matter what. But if so, that's all it is. If ever I am to have anything worth a damn, it lies beyond everything I know, beyond life, beyond thought. And I have no idea how to get there.