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Re: AardigeAfrikaner
Some thorough weaving you've done here. The Big STRANGE in the guise of senselessness and fear is looking straight at you. Thanks for the comment. It's an interesting theory you've got about the motives for cave paintings. There are numerous other theories too. I also find your "progression" from religion through philosophy to science amusing. It was a favorite in the late 19th century amongst "enlightened" scientists.
posted by
AardigeAfrikaner
on July 28, 2008 at 2:46 AM
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AardigeAfrikaner
Life isn't strange. It's senseless. The thing that seperates humankind from every other species on this planet isn't just our opposable thumbs, but our intellect, our ability to ask, Why? A rabbit knows a fox will kill it, so when it catches scent of one on the wind, it runs for its life. The fox knows it's hungry and a rabbit will satisfy it, so it will chase it down, kill it, and eat it. Neither is capable of asking, Why? Both accept things as they are without question nor the desire to change it. Though we possess the same basic instincts as every other creature, fight or flee, kill or die, our ability to ask why, and more importantly, the answers we craft, gives us the potential to overcome them. If we can somehow overcome our basic instincts, we can also overcome its most notable byproduct, fear. Fear rules all, every aspect of societies from the past to the present. Ancient man soon realized he would not survive long on his own, so he formed family units and clans and villages. He feared where his next meal would come from, so after a successful hunt, he scrawled depictions of his triumph on the cave wall. Still, he asked Why? His answers formed religion and philosophy and eventually science. For every answer we find, a dozen more take its place. We're dogs chasing our tails, hamsters on a wheel. We've split the atom and placed men on the moon, but we still hunt each other and kill and die because all the glorious answers we've found still don't answer all our questions to everyone's satisfaction. The senselessness remains. If your answer is correct, then mine must be wrong. Since the wrong answer is worse than none, we seek to prove we are right. We grab a weapon, whether its a pen or the sword and woe onto any who oppose us. It's humankind's endless quest to find answers to the unanswerable, our futile quest to make sense of the senselessnes and conquer the great fears that has brought us to where we are today. It's a double-edged sword, our most profound blessing and our most dreaded curse.
posted by
Talion_
on July 27, 2008 at 8:59 PM
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