A Nirvana of Knowledge at Your Fingertips Human DNA is a closer match to that of chimpanzees than chimp DNA is to that of the orang-utan. How does that make you feel? What emotions wash through you when you consider that reality, for it is reality, biological, evolutionary, reality, it is an inescapable truth. Not a belief, for acceptance of, or denial of it, how you feel makes no difference to it: it is a brute fact about us: it swims in our blood. Do you shudder at the thought? Or do you simply deny it and rush back to the ghetto of your beliefs? Ghetto? How dare I! But, what is a ghetto? It is a state of social exclusion: segregation from the mainstream of society or culture, which results in discrimination, restriction of opportunity. ‘Restriction of opportunity’... Those who sit inside a ghetto are filled with fear and loathing of those who they see as their oppressors. In Nazi Germany this was true for the Jewish people. They had no choice, they were condemned by birth because of a political/ideological belief in Aryan superiority. A cultural, political idea based upon long held myths about the ‘tribe’, and a perversion of the scientific ideas of the naturalist Charles Darwin by one Herbert Spencer. Indeed, the truth is that it was Darwin’s cousin Frank Galton who came up with the idea of eugenics. He did so following in the footsteps of Spencer, who had seen Darwin’s work as a way to prove the racial superiority of the ‘white races’. An idea considered by the British Establishment as proof that they were the natural masters of the world, born to govern and rule the savages of the old world and the new. Darwin himself wanted nothing to do with any of this. Sadly and wrongly, it is his name that has become linked to these ideas, and the monstrous conclusions of putting them into practice. In truth the movement should be called ‘Social Spencerism’ after the man whose idea it was. My point, my point... yes. The truth of this, of what Darwin uncovered, along, of course, with Alfred Russell Wallace, is not a horrible thing that makes us lesser beings because we are descended from a common ancestor with chimpanzees; It is the illumination of knowledge that ties us to the universe and all other living things. It shows us the pathway back through time to our origins, a story, so huge, so rich, so incredible that it puts the fairy stories and cultural myths of lesser times of understanding to shame for there lack of imagination and vision. And it goes deeper still, back and back until we find the very beginning of the universe itself, and there, in that moment of creation were the seeds of mind: the human mind, that can look back into the past and see itself created, know its past, and postulate, dream about its future. ‘Know thyself’ was written over the entrance to the Oracle at Delphi... it is all about us, this truth of us. It is not in ancient books and stories and tribal myths, it is in every breath of air you take into your lungs, every beat of your heart. A Nirvana of knowledge. All you need to do is open your eyes and open your mind. Leave the ghetto of ideas behind. As a side note, I hope my obvious lack of respect for any-kind of ‘establishment’ (be it political/religious) and ‘nationhood’, ‘tribes’ makes more sense now. I have very deep philosophical, intellectual, reasons for these feelings. They stand in the way of understanding the who/ what/ when/ how of what we are. I hope some of my reasoning comes through in these words. We all need to step back from the things we are immersed in and see them from a distance, and read/ listen/ observe the ideas that stand in opposition to them, and why they do. But, to do that risks much, and, in truth, I know this bitter lesson well. For I too end up in a ghetto of social isolation and fear... But, beyond human tribal petty hatreds and fears and desires to control the minds of others, by cultural osmosis or by the sword, the rewards are immense. And, one more thing, and it is an important thing. Just because I feel the way I do about these things does not undermine your thoughts and beliefs, even if I may well stand opposed to them, I am not opposed to you, as a human being. It is not about rights and wrongs, and it is not about sitting on a fence and saying everyone is right in their own way. It is not about any of those things, even though, those things will happen... they become unavoidable it seems. I can only speak for myself, because that is all I am; myself. I want to know. That is my ‘curse’, if it is such a thing. All I know is I am flesh, I am blood, I am bone, and I live. I do not want to change the world in my image, I do not want to control the minds of others or shape the future of humanity to some ideal state of being, no. I am just trying to make some-kind of sense of it all, and I am doing it, like many of you, sometimes in a public space: this space. It is worth restating, because it always is: I have no answers, only questions in search of answers. People who believe they have answers scare me, because in order to do that means you have stopped asking questions and started believing in solutions... bad things often come from this, as human history shows us. This, no matter what you think, and yes, I know many believe otherwise, is a one way trip that goes so fast, and we never know when it will end for us. I, personally, live only in the moment, and I also have come to know, that what is a moment for me, can be an eternity on other scales hidden from plain view. This world and this universe is not about us and for us, that much I have come to understand. We are part of something, deeply entwined into it. We are so small, yet, we are so amazing – ‘Dare to know’!
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 10:36:22 +0000
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