#exsistentialism

we stretched our fingers to the sky, our own towers of Babel. we, foolishly, thought we would be spared the wrath of a god. we belched our fumes into the sky, blackening the air with smog. we dug out the heart of the planet, and used the stolen flesh to build great works. but now we are gone. and the only memory that remains are those within these walls, and the bones outside. the doors are rusted shut, never again open to the world.

rusting machines, servos long burnt out, litter the halls. meant to maintain this place for millennia. the water in here is more slush than liquid, for it was so, so cold. the builders of this place thought the cold would stave off the rot, the damp. and it did. but not long enough. nothing will ever last long enough. we cannot classify the decay of our species. we cannot catalogue, annotate, and understand what fundamentally requires the end of everything we have ever built. we cannot taxonomize the end.

within the servers, even the data is rotting. the increasing power demands, heightened by the cold are unable to be supported by the limited geothermal power plant in the depths of the complex. the files are slowly but surely being corrupted. missing folders, entire books, poems, video games. digitized. gone.

for decay is a persistent thing.

the radio tower at the center of the building has long since collapsed. meant to receive the last gasping words of a dying world. desperate survivors on ships with not enough food. families stuck atop the Empire State building, the Burj Khalifa, the great towers of Babel we once thought were greater than time, the water creeping ever closer. they are probably all dead now. it does not matter.

time does not stop. it will consume our flesh, sloughing the skin from our bones like rotten fruit. then our pages, pulping and emulsifying the paper until it is a sodden, continuous mass. and finally our files, corruption, power loss, and time eventually scrambling data to naught but noise.

Yet paradoxically or maybe even fortunately, we humans spiritually are always sacrificing the present for the future

Are we ever truly appreciating the present? Is to live in the present a privilege? Or a noble feat?

New Learnt: Sisyphus

It seems that in the vastness of the ever-expanding universe there is an elemental necessity to become “perfect”. Such a necessity, a drive of vast proportion, lends to the ever-changing world that many have called home. Behind everything that exists in the cosmos, there is this necessity, albeit that perfection is not necessarily a state of unscathed smoothness or unmolested serenity. Perfection is not some unreal goal established by a cruel universe. It is not some myth invented to make people less than their capacity. The real perfection of the universe is not always an end. Perfection is not always objective and it’s not always subjective. Perfection is not always perfect, and imperfection is not always imperfect.

Out of the many examples of perfection, evolution is one with the most intriguing value. Evolution, a process that has occurred since the beginning of conceivable time, is the process of changing with the environment in order to create the ‘best’ version of something. Not a subjective best, like the best ‘80s Christian Rock Song’ or best ‘Nominated Picture’. This best is not measured by opinion or reason, it is measured by the capacity of surviving, minimalizing energy consumption, the ability to reproduce, as well as several other characteristics. When a planet or a species maximises how much it can maintain all these factors, evolution stops. Consequently, in the eyes of evolution, it is perfect.

The Earth, before its state of devolution, was perfect. At some point, the magma calmed down and life evolved. When the Earth stopped developing, it was perfection. While said perfection did not last, it did exist. Humans are perfect. Humans may not be morally or intellectually perfect, but the being of humans itself is perfect. Long ago did it stop evolving, stop changing. The human body, evolutionarily, reached perfection.

Objective perfection is thus so exemplified by evolution. But, objective perfection is seldom the example when one mentions perfection. It is the subjective perfection that receives much of the attention and exertion. It is the changeable, achievable perfection of self-disposition. The things within the control of the human psyche.

Subjective perfection is just that: subjective. When something is subjective, it is ‘subject to interpretation’. Subject morality is a great example of something being subjective. Everyone has this distinct compass, this flow of thought that, regardless of religion, leads them to decide what is right and what is wrong. This subjectivity is proven with objective religion.  As an example, people of the Christian faith tend to explain that their morality comes from the Bible. However, every Christian interprets it differently. They pick and choose which rules and sins are worth following and they value them differently. For example, many quote from the book of Leviticus to say that homosexuality is wrong; however, they disregard the part of Leviticus telling them to not shave nor to not eat shellfish. They choose what they thought was worth agreeing with and obeying. They used subjective morality.

The reason for mentioning such an example as subjective morality is to emphasise that word: subjective. The perfection that people often mention and debate follows this same logic. Individual people set different standards and goals. When they feel that they have met said goal, they succumb to ‘perfection’. And, they also hold other people to these goals and standards. When people fail to achieve such goals, which they may even be unaware of, they are deemed ‘not perfect’ or ‘imperfect’. Subjective perfection in this sense can cap the abilities of humans and things to grow.

When a mother calls her child a failure every day of their life, the child very often grows up to be a failure. In the mother’s eyes, the child is not perfect, or maybe the mother herself feels imperfect about herself or the way her child came into the world. The child often does not know why or how they failed, they only know that they’ve failed. Without the knowledge of what to do or how to improve, how can anyone improve? They can’t. Perfection only works when it can better a person, not belittle them.

Understanding the object subjectivity of perfection is how one can unlock the key to understanding and growth. Accepting imperfection in others allows one to be in a state of ‘perfection’. Being faulty does not mean imperfection; who’s to say that that person is even at fault? Again, the whole premise of good/bad, fault/perfect, worst/best is subjective when it comes to human consciousness. If the acceptance of something other than this can occur, why does this subjectivity need to even exist? Is it possible that one day everyone can live in the same, collective thought? That humanity could be one, objective form of perfection? Such a world would be colourless, and the desire to be perfect would be satiated. Would this not be boring?