Once upon a time,
Nature and Human existed together in serenity with God in an eternal
nothingness. God, Human and Nature where united, they where one and
they were equal. They would not survive without each other, they all
knew that, and did not question it therefore. One day, they started
to discuss wether one was better than the other, which one of them
that existed first, and who was the one primary to them all. Human
used fantasy and argued with Reason, God just watched quietly and
Nature did not know what to do. Reason was the cause of the divorce
between Human, Nature and God. Human with its newfound love, Reason,
abandoned God, and Nature was now spinning around in universe on its
own. Human created something it called Earth and took Nature as a
hostage. God did not know what to do since it was lost in space but
sometimes it heard its own name being shouted by Human. One day,
Nature realized it missed its relation to Human...
NATURE:
How could you?
HUMAN:
What do you mean?
NATURE:
You destroyed me?!
HUMAN:
I did not destroy you!
NATURE:
You did, and when you abandoned God, you abandoned me! We were
supposed to stick together. We were a team?!
HUMAN:
It was not my fault! God believed it was better than us?!
NATURE:
And who are you to argue against that?
HUMAN:
I did not. Reason did!
REASON
(interrupts) : I did not. It was Nature!
NATURE:
I did not. Life was so much better before Reason was here!
REASON:
You made us do it..
HUMAN:
Reason is right...
NATURE:
I have not done anything!
GOD:
Shut up! Listen! I have something to say!
Nature
and Human did not hear God, since they had their hands full of
reasoning with Reason. The Human of God and the Human of Nature, now
became the Human of Reason.
HUMAN: What was that?
NATURE: I also heard it, maybe it was my nature?
REASON: You guys are crazy. It was nothing.
GOD: DO NOT LISTEN TO REASON! IT IS A TRAP!
THE QUESTIONS...
This
paper, is an unreasonable meditation on earth, nature and the human
being. It is questioning how we look at nature, and the human concept
of human itself and likewise its own concept of nature and its
difference to the human nature as such. The primary purpose of this
paper, is to make you think beyond your own species, beyond your own
humanity, even if that is impossible— try to have a look behind
your own consciousness and about your own perception of reality. This
paper is for the uneducated and for the very smart. This paper will
not prove the impossibility of finding a primary being, a beginning
and a first cause— there is no cause of this paper. This paper has
its own cause, and you might figure out why. This paper is presenting
to you, another circle of life and the thesis that nature does not
really exist. This paper is asking questions it cannot answer— its
only point, is to be the nature of its writer, a dwelling on its own.
This paper is a psychotic rambling like Rousseau's Discourse on
Inequality. Here we go. The conclusion is: pray.
THE OBJECT OF NATURE
When I
think about nature, I think about it as something that I am in, not
something that I am a being of. As soon as I think nature, I
put myself outside of it, I made nature the object of my thought. In
one way, nature is like consciousness, I cannot ask the question
about what it really is, since I cannot eliminate myself from the
equation. There is no way that I can look at it as a pure object. Of
course, the world I perceive is always within me, but in this case,
when I think of nature as an object, I am also without it. The nature
always changes and develops, but the nature of nature itself, we say,
is something that is changeless. I think of nature as a presence, but
the fact is, that nature itself is always moving. Nature is not firm,
it is movement, but the nature of nature, is solid and infinite.
I
think of nature as something beyond me, the reality outside of me,
which is not human. I think of nature, as that which I am surrounded
by. Nature is the environment, that which I am in the middle of. I
put myself as a human being in the center of attention. God is
somewhere in the periphery, and I am standing on the earth, looking
at both myself, God and Nature. I am the center. I am the narrative.
I have, as Dipesh Chakrabarty calls it, an anthropocentric view of
the world, (p.209) which I realize, I cannot escape from. I am not
free, I am a prisoner of my own mind and perception. In this sense,
my mind is even supernatural. It has a metaphysical nature as nature,
which can transcend nature— this process is beyond Reason, we will
come to that later.
Reason
and its empirical knowledge is what is creating my real world and the
nature which I am in; I cannot understand this nature, I do not see
the electrons it is made of and I cannot imagine, the made up reality
of nature. It might be crazy, but at least it is a truth, that I put
Reason with its sensible empirical knowledge in the center of the
universe, and from there, I decide what is natural, and what is not.
Me, on
the other hand, is just a human being in the middle of all this. I am
my body, but I am also the soul within, I am that supernatural
spirit. My body is my environment, that which I am surrounded by,
just as the nature. Everything else but my spirit is included in the
material world. I made myself an object of nature, which I with my
unreasonably mind can escape.
THE HUMAN BEING AS AN OBJECT
Now,
let us have a look at the human. We are not only subjects, but we can
also be seen as objects in and on, for and by this world. Though, we
cannot escape our own existence as experiencing subjects, but we can
with our subjectivity, imagine ourselves as a contributing concept of
and to this world. We are able to fantasize ourselves to a place,
where the human being, and the force of it, are seen as an agents of
and on nature. When I say human, I also say spirit. Human is an
animal with spirit or to use Chakrabarty's concept, the human has an
inside and we think that nature might not and sometimes we ask
ourselves, if the nature would miss us if we were not here. This is a
sign of a mind above nature. We see ourselves as a force of nature
(p.205), that we are the ones that could solve the future with our
science. On top of all this, I can also see myself as biological
organism and not only an organized cultural being that speaks a
language.
When I
think of myself as an object of nature, I wonder, if I am the purpose
of the world? My own mind tend to think so. I think that in the
natural chain of nature, I am a human, and I am the goal. I am
answering the question of God; nature and earth ends with me, but I
also know that this is not true, but this is the beauty of Reason—
it can make anything up.
Nature
itself is changeless, it is the nature of nature. What is it, that
within me is changeless; that is my nature; and what is that nature?
That is the most profound question— is it within my nature to do
something special or to be something? Or is it simply my nature to
ask the question about my own nature? John Sallis puts it as: I come
from earth, and everything I know come from earth. Well, I wonder, do
I really know that? Maybe I came from a stone in outher space from
the beginning? My mind is a result of years of development, it is a
product of yesterdays thoughts. I have matter memories in my DNA.
Maybe the human being is not the end, maybe it is just the beginning?
Maybe I do not know what my nature is, or maybe I do know somewhere
deep within, or maybe I just forgot? Maybe I just use my language to
make things up because I have nothing else to do. Maybe that what I
know deep within, is without language and could be expressed only
with the help of the God I once abandoned.
THE UNNATURAL HUMAN AND THE POINT OF NO POINT.
We
will still and (probably) always wonder, why are we here? What is the
point? This, I will come to later in this paper, some human beings
claims that they have the answer to, but still, those questions makes
me wonder, if those are questions that are within our nature? Are we
meant to think about our own nature? Am I meant to be, to just to ask
these kinds of questions? I am a human, I am a part of nature, but at
the same time I tend to distract myself from it, I am, so to say, in
the process of making a distance between myself and nature. Why? Do I
do it, because then I would be able to ask a question about it? Do I
do it just so that I can define nature as an object beyond myself? Am
I doing this so that I no longer have to be a part of what I am just
about to destroy? Why do I disconnect myself from my own nature?
Beyond all of this, I know, that the earth itself, is the place where
I was born, and the place of my nature? Does this mean, that nature
both is, and is not, a part of me? Sallis has an easy answer to that
question: ”All things come from earth and end up becoming earth.”
(p20.) In this case, why do I try to become something that I am not?
With
this in mind, one more question comes to me: How come, that we by
nature look in space for answers to our existence? Are we traveling
through space to find a new home or what? In the grand scheme of
things (and we humans love schemes and things cause we apparently use
Reason to organize everything), our home is also the universe and the
infinite. Why do we look in space for answers, not on earth, or even
inwards within our deep selves?
To
answer some of my questions I would like to use the philosopher of
Hannah Arendt, who once claimed that “The human is lost in
universe.” How come we think that photographs from Pluto would
give us more answers about our own existence, than people from the
other side of the world? How come, things that are closer to us,
seems more foreign? How come I rather identify myself with a stone or
a flower, than with another human being? I was born to, and on this
earth, but where is my home; where is my place? If that place is not
here, then where can it be? What is my task as a human being; do I
even have one? What is the meaning of my life?
PLACE AS PRIMARY IDENTITY...
Patriots and racists are brought up being told that the most
courageous thing to do is to fight for their country. They are being
told that this is what they are meant to do, that it is the beauty of
life, that family comes first. They are being told, that the spirit
of the land includes to fight for one other, to fight for the power;
it is in their blood to save the place that they call home, the point
of life for them is to save the people that brought them up and made
their home a home.
This means, that the land itself, is the meaning of ones life. The
earth itself is seen as a goal for the humanity. The land, becomes
ones identity. The argument for this is, that if they did not have a
land, then what would they be? My easy answer to that question is,
just like everybody else, some weird ass organism on the planet
earth, like they always have been; but my hard answer to that
question, has to do with place as identity. I see a contemporary
problem here, and it is the one of immigration, or rather, the people
that are living and do not have to immigrate, the population that
already lives, that claim that the land is theirs; the problem is the
people claiming that the immigration is a problem. The patriots and
racists, they are the real problem. They do not realize, that they
actually never had any land to protect, it was always there, the land
owns them, they do not own the land and therefore they cannot claim
that they have something to save. The land was there first! How come
some people think they can own the world? Something is wrong. The
land is nothing that can be owned, and thats why people protect and
fight for it. Simple is that, it is not natural. Patriots and racists
has to fight for their imaginary rights. I would like to say as
Rousseau did, that the first man who said that “This is mine.” is
the one to blame.
The earth was here before us. It is the land that protects us from
falling into never ending space and eternity. We are only a species
and a concept on a planet. Why do we think that we can protect the
world that is actually protecting us from vacuum and nothingness? How
can we even think that we can save it; and what are we supposed to
save it from, when the biggest threat to it, is the human species
ourselves? It is the race of the human race who destroys the world.
Are we not just a parasite that brought war to this world? Is that
our purpose, our causal goal, and the circle of life? Is my nature to
ask the question of my nature and the answer to that question is to
destroy it; is the answer to its question only its own negation. The
circle of life is a short circuit! The point is, that there is no
point. The racists made up their own point, and they claim their
right with land, land that was not theirs from the beginning.
We humans are explorers for sure, but as Hannah Arendt puts it, not
only do we want to experience places, we want to concur them,
physically. We do not want to leave them as they are. We want to take
places with us home. This makes me think about when being a tourist,
how one photograph memories, and wants them as objects. Some times
someone picks up a beautiful stone from a forrest and bring it home
to the living room, and I have even heard and seen people who likes
to bring sand home from a far away beach. The fact that we want to
keep a memory from an earth that did not belong to us and that is no
longer present, makes me question and wonder about the meaning of
place. We want to keep memories we do not really have and which
belong to a place which is not really ours. We want to make something
metaphysical physical. We create an unnatural world. We think we take
nature with us home, when nature already is our home.
THE UPROOTED MAN IS
DESTOYING EARTH.
The uprooting of man has already begun.
It was already here from the very beginning. It is our primary being.
We do not have any roots. We are not trees. Our nature is to think
the worst when we do not know what is going to happen. David Macauley
says that we lost our connection to the Gods, and the Gods where the
once who connected us to each other (p.302). Now we only have the
world between us, and that is, as we all know filled with borders and
empty space, since even if we belong, the space belong to someone or
is actually connected to somewhere else. We are only flesh (p.308),
and the flesh both differ and connects us to our planet. The flesh
remembers, it is made up by the elements from earth, air, fire and
water, which always been here. Our flesh knows, but we do not know
what it knows since we are fooled by Reason. We are still filled with
unreasonable fire, every life that exist is a metaphor of fire
(p.295). Our home is in air, which is also what
carries the voice. (p.316)
We have our inspiration, respiration,
everything with spirit is God remembering us about its existence. It
loves to hide, just like our nature. Elements cannot be property. It
is always shared, like Nature and God— it has no end. When sky was
the limit, the earth had an end, and air was the one border to
heaven. Now we lost ourselves, the elements are no longer us. The
matter moved on. We want to exist only in soul. We see ourselves as
immortal beings, but we are not. Nature is something immortal, and is
going to survive no matter what. It will for sure survive us, since
it does not exist materially anymore, but is still present,
metaphysically. The element of earth is not only the place where I
live, is it also something that I dig into, that I live on and of,
that I make my own. Where we are, is also what and how we are.
(p.319) Our home decides everything, and unfortunately, we lost it.
We still got the elements, the irreducible cosmic substance that
forever is. (p.325)
We
still need a connection. It is said we come from the earth, from the
soil. Man now makes nature a resource and transform it to capital.
Human values clean air and fresh water. Reason made this all happen.
We try to save nature for the future and claim that we are
intelligent, free and moral creations. Why do I need books for
knowledge? I argue with reason and tell myself I have to go to the
soul for nurturing. Where will I find the answer to the questions I
cannot name?
SOME ANSWERS OF BEING
WITH HEIDEGGER...
According
to Heidegger's text “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” we live to
create and to build, our home is actually our life. This means, that
dwelling is our nature. Our living is made out of building, the very
essence of being a human is this particular activity. It is what we
are here for, the purpose of our lives is building, living and
thinking. To think is to live, and to live is to live, and to let
things live is to let live and to let life be, is to fulfill oneself.
That is the point of living. That is what life is. The point through
Heidegger is to create and make life live in the creations. In this
meaning, the human is a product of nature, but the new nature is also
a product of human, and that is how it is supposed to be. We used
nature to create our own nature. We used the elements, fire, water,
air and earth to live. We cannot do it without Mother Earth, but the
energy which started all of this, is the energy within us. It is
within us, like fire, the first energy, life. This is also the first
art (techne) of ours— our first technology, the use of fire.
This how the human being started to make the world its own.
The
environment is a place I do not belong to, but I take it as my place,
I start making it natural for me. Is it nature that is changing
itself or is it me changing nature? Is our productivity natural, and
capitalism, the productivity by human just a part of the natural
chain and therefor is also technology actually natural? If we think
like Heidegger, it is. He says that “Dwelling, however, is the
basic character of Being in keeping with which mortals exists.”.
We are simply just imitating the productivity of nature, but we do it
human style. Nature is our resource, it is there for us to use. We
learn from nature. We can use nature as a book.
THE END OF GOD, THE START OF USING NATURE AND THE
BEGINNING OF THE LIFE...
Nature
was born when the fairytales died. We stopped believing in God, and
started to listen to Reason. The human being started to ask questions
about its own existence with Reason as a functional base. The Human
did not know what earth was, but believed it came from something they
called God, but which they could not identify. The human being could
no longer accept answers without empirical proof. The human wanted to
explain the world from its own perspective. I totally understand
this, and I guess that this is how Mother Earth was created. The
world was now a place for human birth. Macauley use this beautiful
metaphor, of the woman as not only a human being, but also a place.
Since it within most of the female bodies, also is a place for a new
person to live (p.199). This is how we made nature an object, and we
started to organize nature with our minds. Nature was no longer
something we lived in. It was now an object of knowledge.
We use
our language to name things, and we still blame God for the order of
nature. We see ourselves, the human race, as the end of the life
chain, nature is in between. We think we are the goal, that Mother
Earth created us for one purpose, that we are the meaning of this
Earth. We made ourselves kings over the order of nature since we,
ourselves organized it that way. Maybe that might be our purpose—
to organize? We take on ourselves a responsibility that we do not
really have. We seem not to trust God at all. Is that our nature? The
thought that God has another purpose that we are unaware of, is the
most frightened thing; and if we are not the end of this world, then
who or what is? So we try to sort things out on our own, and look how
well it goes...
Nature,
the principle that is our pre model of order, the causal chain, that
which shows us the process of matter, change, reborn and reform. We
look at other animals and see how they make it through the day, and
then we repeat. Einsteins principle of energy comes in handy when we
talk about the primary purpose of everything, that which in
nature/matter/energy can never be created nor disappear, just
transform. It is also the principle that is within us, the principle
of nature, our nature, our elements. Our senses might fool us, that
is why we have to look inward for answers sometimes, we have to look
beyond Reason. We look at Nature and God, we need to forget Reason
and see the truth behind our empirical knowledge.
Let us
talk about the potentiality of matter, it can in fact be everything,
and also, it can be somewhere, it always has a place (p.191). Where
is the natural place of matter? Place is always in a relationship
with matter. (p.195). Every place, have a place, except for cosmos
itself. The place is the container. Place is what is going to be
filled with matter. Place is where the body is. The body is a place.
Long time ago, the body was determined as pre soul (p.234). The body
is what possesses life. Just like earth is the place for life. It is
the beginning, it is change, the internal source of movement. It is
our bodies that can be moved. We can be another place. Where we are,
is the room. We are place, and we are at place. The earth is our
place.
Now it
seems like the human being is controlling the material world and that
the human being itself is the movement, nature, and place. We made it
that way. We changed the nature without even knowing it. The nature
that we so much wanted, does not even exist. There is no nature
beyond us. The human being just figured out, that we are not even
bound to the physical laws on earth. Arendt puts it like we try to
make space in space. (p.270). We travel to other planets. We can see
physical things existing that does not empirically exist, but we see
these thing with mathematics, away from our perception. We can look
at them with science. We travel to space to look what is beyond
nature. We say that science can explain everything. The weird thing
is that we made science up ourselves. Nothing can be explained to
humans beyond our own logic. Take God for example, the search for the
truth took us beyond ourselves. It took us to space. The laws exist
only in our brains, or as Arendt says, that our brain is bound to
earth (p.280).
My
biggest dream is to leave earth, to leave my own place of mind. I
want to experience a world beyond my human mind. What am I born to
do, when place and living is a part of my being, but I do not know
what to do with it; when I cannot get out of here? How am I supposed
to live, when I no longer have a place to live on, when the world is
no longer what it was? The world changed so fast, but the human being
is still stuck. I cannot claim my space as mine anymore? I am an
immigrant on a planet. What am I suppose to do? I do no longer know
my own nature and the purpose of my life? I once had an answer
provided by the place I was born at, but nowadays, I have no room, I
have nowhere to live. I am lost. I do not know who or what I am. What
is the being of being a human being?
If we
I not have a place, I am just an immigrant. I am like Kennedy
expresses it, just waste, I am matter without a place. I became a
lost soul with nothing to hang on to. Baby, I think I am in need of
Nature and God. I am just Human, I will not make it on my own.
THE HUMAN BEING, THE POLITICAL ANIMAL.
I am afraid of going with the racist,
but at least they give me a solution. I was always looking for a
solution. I always wanted answers. They give me the answers to the
hardest of questions. Why am I here? I am here to concur. How will I
concur? By killing all the other animals and take their place. It is
easy. As human beings, we developed by looking at
the other animals, and we did as they did. We started to make
ourselves territories, just as other animals, but there is one
important differences among others. The human being is not only an
animal; it is also a spiritual being. It cannot make territory
against other humans, since other humans are also themselves. Reason
says no, but poor long lost God says yes.
This is what the racists
forgot, that we once belong to God and not Reason. With reason and
territories, we needed laws. We invented a power on earth and earth
itself was no longer the greatest intentional power and movement of
them all. The humans own creation got to be the biggest and economy
is the most important thing. The human being started to own nature
and made it its own resource. Reason took me to the state of an
animal, a state where I forgot about the spirit, a state where my
desires where the rulers.
My history is that one of the wild
people, I was once one among the naked beasts of nature. I have been
closer to earth, I did believe in something. When I was in my first
place, my mother's wombs, I believed in a power greater than myself!
I knew a power greater than myself existed, cause I was in the middle
of it. Reason has not yet been there and talked to me. I am unaware
of the organizing language and rules of national borders. What did I
know back then? I was born with an uneducated Reason. My Reason is
also cultural, but back then, all I relied on was my God, the Mother.
Nowadays, I really think I know what
nature is, since I am nature myself? I know
nature, since nature built me. I know how it is made. But what is it?
Am I just jumping around from empty space? Is this nature only a
place before we are born again, into another world? Is Mother Earth
only another womb? When I transcend nature, I become Divine.
FINALLY, IT IS TIME FOR THE END...
This
was a meditation beyond Reason, it is based on feelings, that which
is the nature of me as an animal. My feelings are my connection to
earth, to fire, air and water. My blood is pumping like a flood, my
breath is getting heavier and I can feel my energy— that what I am.
That, which I once was, but Reason once told me I was spiritual, that
I was divine.
I am a
stranger to myself. I lost the contact with nature since the nature
is not here anymore. I destroyed it. I lost my nature, I lost God. I
lost my moral. I lost myself. I am only an organism on a planet
rolling around in an endless universe. A
long time ago, the sky was the limit, that is not the case anymore. I
am my own limit. Human is the limit.
The
point is, to not exist at all, to totally become spirit and exist
beyond matter. I wish you a very good luck, and until then, enjoy
your time in empty space place. Beyond my feelings is serenity, that
which was my primary being, my existence as Human along Nature and
God. My thoughts are taking place, they fill the uterus of my brain.
Finally, and the most important questions of all, what happened to
God? God was once very close bound to earth. Human loved God, and God
loved Human, what happened? Long time ago people killed God and
instead put their own metaphysical family as the highest spirit and
primary goal. The racist patriots put the spirit of the nation above
all, and other worshiped their mom.
The point of this is, and one of the point with God, is that God has
a plan, right? Also, this earth we are living on, is the room in
which the plan of God is taking place, right? Here is the deal,
earth, that which some people say that God created in the first
place, is not really here anymore. It existed a long time ago. Was
that the plan of God? Was the plan to make earth something that can
be claimed and measured and understood with what we call science?
Nature, is something that Reason took and made its own. Earth
disappeared when man started to listening to his own voice more than
the voice of God. Now Reason tries to kill us by making up
differences between peoples nature and other peoples nature. Reason
is trying to kill us, and it is blaming Nature for it. Human is
taking Gods place and started to make rules for an earth which he
does not own, nor know.
When I feel that I am supernatural, I feel that I am really alive;
and this supernatural feeling, is within my nature, but I have to get
there. It is like a place, but it is not material, it is
metaphysical, and I think only God has the answer to that, since
Nature, is earthbound, and Human, finite, and Reason is not the one
who can tell me anything about the metaphysical. Reason is not that
smart, but Human is free, God is a choice and Nature has goals. We
will see what happens. Now, time to pray.
Space.
Not
empty space.
Space.
The
End.
Fulfilled
space.
Finite.
Literature
Arendt, Hannah. The Conquest of Space
and the Stature of Man. The New
Atlantis, Number 18, Fall 2007, pp. 43- 55
Chakrabarty,
Dipesh. The Climate of History- Four Theses
Heidegger,
Martin. Building, Dwelling, Thinking.
Trans. Albert Hofstadter. Poetry, Language, Thought. Harper Colophon
Books, New York. 1971.
Kennedy.
2007. Waste. State
University of New York Press. Albany.
Macauley,
David. 2011. Elemental Philosophy: Earth, Air, Fire and Water as
Environmental Ideas. New York: State University of New York Press
Rousseau,
Jean- Jaques. 1754. Discourse on Inequality
Sallis,
John. 2010. The Elemental Earth
Notes
from seminars and lectures with Johan Redin, October 2015, Södertörns
Högskola
