Without survival, there is nothing. Existence does not remember that which has faded from it, existence is only in the moment. The value, therefore, of existence, such as it may be, exists only in the moment. Once the moment has passed, it is forgotten and the momentary value of that existence ceases to be.
And yet, all who open their eyes to the transience of our existence must be all too aware that nothing lasts forever, nothing is eternal. Not ourselves, nor anything of us, nor anything we can ‘create’ in our brief flicker of life. The human species, this planet, this galaxy, this universe, indeed, this entire existence itself, must finally cease to be.
So, considering these two points together, one might find themselves moved to nihilism, to a rejection of life and of any value in existence. However, such a thought is based on a fundamental mis-assumption derived from the same dark recess of our brain that first conjured up thoughts of an immortal soul, of an after-life. Almost all religions, both living and dead, lay claim to some form of immortal existence, to a life after this one. This belief in an afterlife springs from our fundamental fear of non-existence, of not surviving. We want, we need, to live forever, in some form, because deep down we know that once we are gone we will be but ashes and dust, our words and actions and memories forgotten. And through the rise to prominence of monotheistic religion- and in particular the Christian theology- this thought has become ingrained upon us so deeply it is almost impossible to separate it from our view of the world.
Religion places its value in the eternal- in an everlasting god, in the ‘soul’ passing to ‘heaven’ in order to spend eternity at the side of a supreme being, the source of our eternal existence. The morals, values and beliefs of a religious system are written down and taught, blindly accepted by uncounted millions. They are external to the individual and therefore, they hope, eternal. The religious belief defies the life-affirming, Nietzschean acceptance of its own eventual non-existence. Therefore, religion simply cannot accept the transience of all things, for then it would have to accept the transience of its own existence, of its concepts of god and the afterlife, its morals and values.
The value of a thing is not, as the religious mind may perceive it, diminished by the fact it is not eternal. Rather, it becomes greater for it. A thing without an end is not a thing in of itself, it is the status quo, and thus has no value. Value is momentary, temporary. It is beyond the status quo. Having an end means there will be a time it does not exist; therefore a thing has value for the time in which it exists.
"I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is none the less true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting."
Bertrand Russell
Whilst value is made possible by a thing’s lack of permanence, that value only survives as long as that which creates it. That which comes after may create a new value for it based on a new form of existence for the thing in question. For example, it could be said that the value of the dinosaurs was derived, during their existence, from the very fact of their existence as unique life forms unlikely to be recreated in this existence. However, once the dinosaurs became extinct, that value was lost.
Now, human beings create value from the existence of dinosaurs- not as living things but as fossils and bones and other indicators of their once existence- as a window into the prehistory of our planet.
Therefore, the ultimate value a thing can have is its survival- without this, all other value derived from it cannot exist.
For the brief flicker of our existence, of our survival, we may create values and ideas, take innumerable actions and face countless experiences. However, the value of any of this only remains as long as they survive. Survival is the single most important drive in any species, and one which continues to affect the human race, often in unusual ways, to this day.
No comments:
Post a Comment