Journals of Lord Malinov

the poetry of madness

Zen

Self-importance isn't just the caesarian confidence of taking over the world.  Indulging in pain, in psychic illness, in drama, in turmoil, in frustration, in indecision can fuel all-consuming self-importance to the same levels as the most selfishly spoiled aristo. 

In a struggle to survive, self-indulgence is luxury.  When a tiger attacks, depression will either quickly fade or offer a sacrifice to the cat-god.  How much of our lives, our ways, our worries, our angst would stand firm as a tornado approaches, the thick grey clouds of pyroclastic eruptions, the sudden clamp of a crocodile's ton?

The fact that we can go through most days without fearing a sudden death is a grand achievement, a gift from our foreparents in their insane development of our world.  Where the luxury of our birth becomes destructive, we must return to the questions that formed our evolution.  What does it mean to need to survive?

The Mongols ruled the world because they survived in the nastiest place on earth.  Harsh levels of natural selection can give savages an edge.

The world has suffered near-life-extinction catastrophes (or groups of catastrophes) every 30 million years.  Our solar system wobbles across the galactic plane every 30 million years, exposing our system to larger numbers of objects, typically knocking comets off orbit.  We are due for another round of environment shattering catastrophes.

I suspect the reason we don't hear more from aliens is that evolving for long periods of time in this chaotic universe is incredibly difficult.  You can't solve the fundamental space-time transference questions with 60 million years of evolution and that's a damn lucky streak for species survival on a planet.  A good comet smash could take out everything this side of bacteria.  Bacteria is the ultimate in hardy, even surviving in space.  A portion of our DNA will survive, come what may.

Live every day as though it were your last.  Plan every tomorrow as if you'll live forever.

Malinov

posted by: Malinov at 10:10 | link | comments |

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