The temporal is all we have, we chase the temporary for the same reasons we chase beauty; it withers quickly, we wish to bask in its momentary bloom while it lasts. For the flowering of what quenches desire is that which the spirit of humanity chases and feels most deeply a kinship towards. This truth is an ever present reality, nothing wrong with any of it, dreaming and fantasy is what the future is made of; where freedom waits to be revealed, for we are truly free when we are ourselves and we are our dreams. What wonders have we made from dreams, what nightmares have we built, and what scapes will we traverse? We make our dreams into reality, for that brief span that we exist in this moment, that is beautiful; the waning time we have brought to fruition with our limited capacity and momentary thoughts and feelings. We work in boundless ways towards the impossible with limited possibility, yet, against the odds, we conflict against the uncaring universe to create a meaning from the nihilistic reality that envelopes us; that is the beauty of struggle, the beauty of dreams, the beauty of life. Despite all impossible odds, in the face of total meaninglessness, we stand briefly and give meaning to the meaningless, description to the picture, feeling to the form, and an observer to beauty.
These things, if nothing else, allow us to reflect upon our mortality and upon our animal nature; as humanity is bound to nature in as much as nature is reflected by itself. We are those parts divided, the conflicting elements of the finite grappling against time itself; clawing desperately at the slipping moments as we fall towards oblivion and the ever gaping maw of eternity. Like sparks we gleam briefly and brightly in the dark, shimmering against the contrast of the universe; a dead and non-conscious place of being, devoid of feeling and caring. We are the universe made cognizant, we laugh for it, we cry for it, we live and die for it; yet the universe itself knows not its own experience of itself, for as we return to the non-conscious state of inanimate matter, we are no wiser than the rest of the universe we inhabit, what a humbling fact. We are wondrously insignificant, like fireflies in the night, appreciated by the observer, but think of how many places observe not. Think of the vast gaps of spaces where no eyes see, where no thoughts whisper; for no minds are there to whisper a thing. We are less than nothing when contemplating it, and our actions are seemingly just as small or smaller when we grasp the vastness of the expanse that stretches out far beyond our little backwater world of green and blue; a speck out midst the stars.
The hubris of our little minds, contemplating that we are special, that some grand designer of great significance shaped and formed us with purpose and importance; all characters in a cosmic story of great significance, yet if we are another's fiction, are we not even more worthless cosmically, a book upon a random shelf? That an author wrote out our lives, sculpted us in detail, outlined our stories and fates; yet says we have free will. Cast I all of it off, for though the night is cold I need not a jacket to comfort me out there in the night air; a brisk walk strengthens the senses and steels the mind. No special divine authority is required to be assumed for order or beauty to arise, our moral scape has been populated by our desires since the begging; with our morals always taking a very human centric view point, a mystery to say the least, such solipsism to the thinker is far less mysterious. We are the shapers and makers of such things, no highest king above all is required in order for comradeship to exist and wonder to fill the senses; we can, do, and should take in the numinous with pleasure and wrap the grandeur of existence around ourselves for those brief increments that such wonder overpowers us and we find ourselves feeling the aw that is life.
What other authority could give one's own life meaning beyond one's self, what individual besides myself could my conscience be convinced of beyond it's own limited capacity, who other than that inmost voice could grant morality to the morals, value to the valuable, or love to the lovely? No transcendent code of civility and morality exists beyond the humans who have constructed and enact such things, we are both jailer and prisoner; yet these are inapt descriptions, for the mind feels offended at such words, and I mean no offence in their use. What perfect life could we have? For life is itself a patchwork of difficulty and struggle, life is a mess, a beautiful and terrible experience filled brimming with pleasure and pain; the likes of which we shall only experience once. Yet all, all is meaningless, we will be snuffed out with a flick of a cosmic wrist and vanish as if not a thing stood there before; not even a smoking wick will there be, for even the candle itself will have disappeared. And so we choose, we choose how to live, how to live together, how to take or fellows into account and diminish the pain as much as possible; should we so choose to. It is all meaningless, we are all worthless, and what a humbling thing to realize, that we, in all our grandiose dreaming, with all of our life and love, are less than nothing. Yet this is what gives us meaning, we give ourselves meaning, our struggle gives us meaning, our defiant act of dreaming against all the truth presented, that all will come to naught; these are the things that grant us a limited moment of personal meaning and individual value, unto ourselves. We are the lover, we are the observer, we are the valuer, and we give things meaning; despite the fact that all of it means nothing.
These things, if nothing else, allow us to reflect upon our mortality and upon our animal nature; as humanity is bound to nature in as much as nature is reflected by itself. We are those parts divided, the conflicting elements of the finite grappling against time itself; clawing desperately at the slipping moments as we fall towards oblivion and the ever gaping maw of eternity. Like sparks we gleam briefly and brightly in the dark, shimmering against the contrast of the universe; a dead and non-conscious place of being, devoid of feeling and caring. We are the universe made cognizant, we laugh for it, we cry for it, we live and die for it; yet the universe itself knows not its own experience of itself, for as we return to the non-conscious state of inanimate matter, we are no wiser than the rest of the universe we inhabit, what a humbling fact. We are wondrously insignificant, like fireflies in the night, appreciated by the observer, but think of how many places observe not. Think of the vast gaps of spaces where no eyes see, where no thoughts whisper; for no minds are there to whisper a thing. We are less than nothing when contemplating it, and our actions are seemingly just as small or smaller when we grasp the vastness of the expanse that stretches out far beyond our little backwater world of green and blue; a speck out midst the stars.
The hubris of our little minds, contemplating that we are special, that some grand designer of great significance shaped and formed us with purpose and importance; all characters in a cosmic story of great significance, yet if we are another's fiction, are we not even more worthless cosmically, a book upon a random shelf? That an author wrote out our lives, sculpted us in detail, outlined our stories and fates; yet says we have free will. Cast I all of it off, for though the night is cold I need not a jacket to comfort me out there in the night air; a brisk walk strengthens the senses and steels the mind. No special divine authority is required to be assumed for order or beauty to arise, our moral scape has been populated by our desires since the begging; with our morals always taking a very human centric view point, a mystery to say the least, such solipsism to the thinker is far less mysterious. We are the shapers and makers of such things, no highest king above all is required in order for comradeship to exist and wonder to fill the senses; we can, do, and should take in the numinous with pleasure and wrap the grandeur of existence around ourselves for those brief increments that such wonder overpowers us and we find ourselves feeling the aw that is life.
What other authority could give one's own life meaning beyond one's self, what individual besides myself could my conscience be convinced of beyond it's own limited capacity, who other than that inmost voice could grant morality to the morals, value to the valuable, or love to the lovely? No transcendent code of civility and morality exists beyond the humans who have constructed and enact such things, we are both jailer and prisoner; yet these are inapt descriptions, for the mind feels offended at such words, and I mean no offence in their use. What perfect life could we have? For life is itself a patchwork of difficulty and struggle, life is a mess, a beautiful and terrible experience filled brimming with pleasure and pain; the likes of which we shall only experience once. Yet all, all is meaningless, we will be snuffed out with a flick of a cosmic wrist and vanish as if not a thing stood there before; not even a smoking wick will there be, for even the candle itself will have disappeared. And so we choose, we choose how to live, how to live together, how to take or fellows into account and diminish the pain as much as possible; should we so choose to. It is all meaningless, we are all worthless, and what a humbling thing to realize, that we, in all our grandiose dreaming, with all of our life and love, are less than nothing. Yet this is what gives us meaning, we give ourselves meaning, our struggle gives us meaning, our defiant act of dreaming against all the truth presented, that all will come to naught; these are the things that grant us a limited moment of personal meaning and individual value, unto ourselves. We are the lover, we are the observer, we are the valuer, and we give things meaning; despite the fact that all of it means nothing.
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