To Be Or Not To Be
Timeless reality marches on carelessly smearing existence upon itself. Humans have been at war with nature and themselves for at least as long as there were enough humans to consider their own survival. Transcendence hasn't come and won't come without a total absolution of what humans have come to define as humanity - the very notion of humans is one of dominance, manifest destiny, borders, dominion, mastery - ultimately to be Human is to actively Stake Claim Over Existence.
The cruel, thoughtless stroke of evolution was accidentally mutating a species with a biological advantage suited to terraforming. Humanity is a species who long ago deluded itself into believing its selfish survival depends on its ability to transform the world, not be transformed by it. The selfish gene, in total success, morphs into the selfish species - a species that seeks its own survival at all costs. So repugnant the thought, it is never uttered in even non-polite company - that is... the Species As It Is Today Is Perhaps Not Perfect To Rule The Planet and All Planets. Humanity always builds the metaphorical ark and loads the existence it collectively believes is correct. And in this ark humanity remains largely unchanged, rarely aware, attempting to stack the deck in its short range physical favor - to defeat nature by being above it. And to what purpose? what end? other than, that's how it must be.
To be, or not to be! That really is the question. The selfish species has almost always chosen Not To Be. Humanity chooses Not To Be in concert with the nature and the purposeless, yet soulful tapestry of existence. It chooses Not To Be a medium of existence and chooses To Be a raging deity building up its own existence at the destruction existence. Humanity Stakes Claim by unstaking everything else.
Blasphemy! Nihilism! Those are the thoughts of many who will read this. Hater of life! Hater of existence! Which, of course, is completely the anti-thesis of a position of restraint, of an observant and meditative non-position. A meditative position is one of perpetual openness and one of non-believing, non-truth, non-brand, non-ideology, non-decisions, non-human. "Non" is the scary part to humans, particularly those humans raised in a Western and/or a religious doctrine of any kind. The entire idea of civilization, personhood, society, intelligence, religion is a reification of Humanity as a fundamental thing of the universe. This is the biggest, most fateful delusion of all.
It's near impossible to break free from Humanity As The Source of Existence. Probably so improbable this break in absolute doctrine humanity will accidentally but totally complete its program - humanity has already crafted the necessary tools of the ultimate Terraform: distributed ledgers, virtual reality and generative manufacturing. Humanity as a physical species is now completely unnecessary, so total its staking claim over reality. And then there's this other staking claim out there... one in which the physics still matter to some, but it's no less completely destructive. This claim is the one of distributed, ancient physical violence married to 24/7 mediation through global hyperconnectivity. These are the two mainstream humanities. They are weirdly at odds and yet totally syncopated: in a strangely grotesque Not To Be dance they both are dancing humanity to its final end - the complete distraction of claim staking species that's staked so many claims its oceans will overwhelm all. As part of that distraction there are those humans of all humanity staking out Human Technology Will Save Us Yet Again. To Mars! The Sharing Economy unto the autonomous everything! Drones To Deliver The Food and The Bombs!
A dark, dim view? Yes, of the two dominant humanities. Getting beyond the ultimately limiting humanism and into non-humanism lightness of being can be found. Existence itself, all around humans and nature alike, is beautiful, wonderful, awesome, unflinching and distinctly Non-Human. A higher engagement in existence through transformation and transduction - living through existence, not in-spite of it. To become, to always be-coming into new relations - never clinging to old relations, old terraformed hierarchies. Relenting and restraining from being the cause and instead becoming affected.
It is an unlikely future for the human species. the dominant humanities program Not To Be.
some of us will non-program To Be. Always something else - part of a shifting tapestry of existence.