I promise, for once, that this will not be long. I never actually find the time to write. And even when I do, it is not exceptional enough for me to publish it for the reading pleasure of more than one person. All the more, I never found the reason to write a memoir; probably afraid of the fact that there will be too few who bother reading it. To fully enjoy an artifact is a difficult thing. It becomes painful when few share your views, or rather when many prefer to not find time to examine your perspective. Such a memoir, I was afraid, would only add to the growing pile of my unread masterpieces. Yet, I try to push for such brilliance. The memoir: in the reminiscence of the time that I had once experienced - the time that I had once lived through - one of the first things that come to mind would be the purpose of my survival - the purpose of our society – the purpose of my living and in the most abstract sense the purpose of my cognition.
The philosophical discussion of living and of society might not be one which I might very readily get involved in. I am not a philosopher; rather I prefer to term myself as an observer – a human, who is an organism, one amongst the myriad of the other creations; who fortunately is able to articulate his thoughts in comprehensible form: in English. I am a mechanism amongst infinite others who make the great working machine of the universe - a small and insignificant part of the framework of nature. I make the machine be as what it is and I make it work. It is a rather gratifying assumption; yet it fails to answer the question, very often encompassed by a single, yet beautiful word: why?
I have never killed; or rather, I try not to kill on purpose. The pain of death is such that one can enjoy it only once. And much of the time I try not to be the person delivering it. I prefer not to, yet prefer not to stop one from doing so too. I fend much criticism in expressing my views and to exhibit the way that I wish to think. I do not force my mind into anyone else; for if you encounter this memoir, it is indeed by your own wish and whim. I prefer not to overrate human life, like all of society. It might be phrased otherwise as the fallacy of underrating animal life. I like to see them all the same. But that serves to be but only one of the divides that I think about. The purpose of our cognition can only be understood if we oversee these divides from the perspective of nature. In the great organism, Homo sapiens, there are many perceptible divides, which I am lazy to name. Amongst these divides there is much tension, much violence and hatred. Let’s call this simply: fragmentation. The purpose of these divides remains a mystery and for long, I believe, it will remain so.
Recounting the flaws and downfalls of the thought and actions of human nature, another failure that comes to mind is of religion and its part in fragmentation. Religion is the instrument that rids us of helplessness, or so it seems. With the various concepts and ideologies that show us paths towards what one might call “God”, religion has handicapped our perception of ourselves. In the pursuit of realizing ourselves, we might have lost sight of respecting the intelligence of a person of our own species, largely because we fail to understand that all religion is true and that all religions are just different paths to the same entity.
“God isn’t small enough to fit into one religion”
It is interesting how I find myself digressing from the actual intent of my memoir and more into the purpose of the being and cognition. I see myself recounting on my experience and my meditation on this very quest for purpose, not philosophically, but realistically. It is the confused search for a reason of this very fortunate sequence of events that has led to my and everyone of your existence. The reflection on this facility that we are born with does not belong to my memoir, because this thought by itself is a gift from the otherworld.
This reason for my discussion is of an elusive nature and I often lose track of it even now as I choose words to finish this endeavor. Knowing that I am an insignificant yet indispensable part of this system that runs around me is vastly insufficient in the quest for the reason. It is frustrating to live in this quiz where we are the masters of creating and destroying life and matter; yet we are unable to control all of the system or any of the complex questions that it poses. In the 200,000 history of our species, we have come thus far in the development of our society. Yet, as it seems to me, we haven’t gotten any closer in discovering our purpose in this universe. Before I find any critics pointing out that some individuals might have acquired/trained the extraordinary talent to discover the purpose of their existence, not many societies have done so. Or to better phrase it, those societies that have done so have not been considered superior to the rest.
It seems that everyone has discovered that the health of our societal systems is degrading. Death and destruction seem to be more pervasive and prevalent in our world. You may wish to reason such an observation to the more powerful media that reports and to a large extent sensationalizes/exaggerates facts and a larger human population. Although this is an accusation on the perspective frame of the observer and a doubt on the observation; it cannot be seen as an actual reduction in the extent of violence in the world throughout the years. Also, a larger population and a more effective pervasion of ideologies is reason enough to ensure that the ideas that are spreading throughout humanity are novel and simple enough for people to comprehend and act accordingly. It may be obvious that the ideas that I talk of are analogous to religion and the concepts and morals that they preach.
Throughout the years, with the development of religion (and consecutively of morals), there has been an ironic escalation in the number of martyrs and destruction in defense of ideology. The more we grow, the more we seem to harm ourselves. So is moral growth beneficial at all? The problem of faith is that it is in every one of us and it is a part of who we are. Since it is so close to our hearts and is the framework of our principles, ideologies and morals- a challenge to our faith seems to be a challenge to the basis of our existence.
The only constant in this system is change. To evolve is the will of this system. It is a constant force that remains to be the impetus towards the perfection of our species. Challenges to ideologies must, thus, not be met with violence but with thought. When we understand that religion is not a natural phenomenon but a man-made creation that we tend to hold so close to our hearts, we will realise that it too is allowed to evolve for the better and cannot remain a fixed constant.
However, religion is but only part of the reason for fragmentation and cannot fully encompass the entire purpose of my memoir. But before I continue to explain the methods to solve fragmentation, it seems to be a pertinent necessity that I discuss the nature of fragmentation.
I have a queer ideology. I believe that the system is a manifestation of the ultimate form of perfection. We are the products of (or better yet, part of) such a system. To accuse ourselves of imperfection is to accuse our creators of their handiwork. (Please note that it would be helpful to understand “our system” and “our creators” as the sequence of events, in the neat framework of causality, that have brought about the occurrence of the universe that we call “now”. However, nearly any rational imagery that you may employ to the two terms will help in understanding the discussion.) Therefore, fragmentation, hate, crime or any other form of negativity that we experience cannot be seen as a deviation from perfection. It is the balance of the equilibrium. However, due to the nature of good being good and bad being bad, it only makes sense that we try to tend towards positivity. In fact it even seems that our facilities were possibly designed for “thought as an individual” and not for the comprehension of the entire system. Regardless of the drawbacks of our societal system we are to strive for survival as a species. Thus, even if my ideology be queer, it still is prudent to solve fragmentation and not confuse ourselves with the issues of providence.
The more tangible yet necessary form of fragmentation that can defeat the purpose of the “survival as a species” hypothesis is race and nationalism. The only reason that such fragmentation seems necessary today is because it is so deeply woven into our way of thought that we cannot accept that an Indian, Spaniard, Chinese, French, American and Somalian be our people all at the same time. So it seems that a certain form of violence derived from competition is inherent to our species. Humans are indeed a destructive species; but the damage that we induce is ironically self-inducing. The characteristic that makes us an entity, defeats the purpose of our maturity. But is it possible to live as a single human species, as one country, as one united people? Possibly we started out living in small clans and throughout the centuries have evolved to form the biggest of clans called countries or more recently, economic unions. The problem with fragmentation is not the divides but the consequence of the divides. Competition between “clans” can lead to hatred, distrust, violence and war.
The reasons of developing armies are beyond the purpose of defence. Regardless of the size or the significance of a nation, the development of its fighting capabilities (army, navy, air force etc) always will have a more furtive purpose. When a nation is attacked, to fight in the name of defence is inconsequential. The reason of attack is of most consequence. The only reason I accuse all nations of a shady defence aim and capability is because of the utopian proposition. If all nations were to unanimously cease productions of weapons and armaments and discard all that have thus far been produced; a possible divine peace will ensue and of course if all humans were to unite as one nation, we might find fewer reasons to fight over.
That brings us to the question of violence within nations. Even though I can quote examples almost immediately at the mentioning of ‘violence within nations’ I purposely avert them to maintain objectivity and due to the risk of ignorance of the intricate issues involved. This paper understands that the blaming ourselves for the accentuation of races is of a controversial matter. However, fragmentation brings about discord between peoples due to the perspective of races having the quality of being superior to one another. Issues of racism arise only because of this perspective and assuming that humans are of such a nature of alienating entities different from those that they identify themselves a part of, we can only accuse the development of races for fragmentation.
Assuming that the forces that shape humanity are entirely natural and come from within the human psyche we can understand that our society is subject to a constant flux. Our attitudes and principles are constantly changing, possibly due to the nature of each new generation consisting of radically different individuals who feel it necessary to not follow their predecessors. Thus, we finally arrive at the only solution to fragmentation: globalisation. Globalisation in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones. It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together. In the most utopian sense, globalisation seems to at least quell the violent nationalist pride that divides countries. The most optimistic projections might foretell a world comprising a single nation and the destruction of fragmentation.
Globalisation, however, is still false universalism. If fragmentation has finally died, I wouldn’t be writing this paper at all. Globalisation might finally kill part of fragmentation, but not yet. Even if this magic tool, the product of high-tech innovation, works its miracles in the way that it destroys national boundaries, it cannot promise to remove racial divides. Because of the illusion of superiority mentioned afore alone, the “survival purpose” will require us to destroy the concept of race eventually; for the sake of peace and rudimentary survival.
The journey has been an enchanting one, for the writer in particular, and I am sure not as much for the reader. It is not that I have little faith in my prowess with words, but I understand that the inertia that our environment has forced unto our throats will preserve fragmentation. It will live on for a while longer. The path of ultimate love for everyone and everything- of the system and of the ultimate creator- must remain a utopian dream for now and for a few more days to come.
Revolution is a difficult thing. Ironically, even if change were to be the constant of the system, revolution is of a league its own. To take a system to its very brink and to push its head forcefully over the cliff and frighten it witless from the perilous drop and to coax it violently back from that brink is the method of revolution. And I, honestly (and realistically), don’t believe that this is something that I can imagine humanity to encounter anytime soon. But only at the brink, at the very precipice, will we change. This paper will not be, and was never intended to be, the spark that destroys fragmentation and brings about an eternal love in the heart of humanity- but that would be a nice thought. No?
I am known for my uncanny ability to keep promises. That is to promise to keep promises and to sometimes break them unknowingly and to still say that I kept them and work my way out of the mess through wordplay.
In the vastness of eternity and the greatness of the very fabric that ties every entity that has been brought into creation: love; this memoir of purpose (of humanity) is but a pathetic infinitesimally tiny attempt to force a plausible opinion. So tell me now, as promised, is it really that long?
Of Kimi
27 Mar 09
I wish to credit Enlin Lynne for inspiring the idea of “Globalisation being another false universalism.”
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