'A dissertation on the nature of man, for your edification.'
"You realize that a tiger, following its nature is not evil. Looking at your own species you are less kindly, less compassionate, less understanding. It is easy to condemn your own kind.
It may be difficult for you to understand, but your species means well. You understand that the tiger exists in a certain environment and reacts according to his nature. So does man. Even his atrocities are committed in a distorted attempt to reach what he considers good goals. He fails often to achieve the goals, or even to understand how his very methods prevent their attainment. He is indeed as blessed as the animals,. however, and his failures are the result of his lack of understanding. He is faced with a far more complex conscious world than the animals are, dealing particularly with symbols and ideas that are then projected outward into reality, 'where they are to be tested'. If they could be tested mentally in your context, there would be no need for physical existence.
Too many complicated issues are connected here, so that I must at best simplify. It was as if man said: "Now what about 'this' idea? What can we do with it? What will happen if we toss out into reality, physically? How far can we go with 'any' of the great social, scientific, religious ideas that are so peculiarly the offshoots of man's mind. If such issues could be worked out on some non-physical drawing board, again, the great challenge of physical existence would be neither necessary or meaningful.
How far, say, can nationalism be carried? To what extent can the world be treated as if it were external to man, as an object? What can man learn by treating the body as if it were a machine? As if it were a mirage? As if it were driven by blind instinct? As if it were possessed by a soul?
To some extent, these are all unique and creative ponderings that on the most part of the animals alone would be considered the most curious and enlightening intellectual achievements. The animals must relate to the earth, and so must man. As the animal must play, mate, hunt his prey or eat his berries within the physical context of sun, ground, trees, snow, hail, and wind, so in a different way man must pursue his ideas by clothing them in the elemental realities of earth, by perceiving them as events. When he is destructive, man does not seek to be destructive per se; but in a desire to achieve that which he thinks of as a particular goal that to him is good, he forgets to examine the goodness of his methods. One animal chasing and killing its prey serves the greater purpose of preserving the balance of nature, whether or not the animal is aware of this - and again, the animal's intent is not evil.
Man consumes ideas. In so doing he contributes to a different kind of balance, of which he is usually unaware. But no man truly acts out of the pure intent to do wrong, or to be vicious. Storms rend the summer sky, sending forth thunder and lightning. Earthquakes may ravage the countryside. You may deeply regret the havoc worked, knowing that neither the storm nor the earthquake is evil. Not only did they have no wrong intent, but the overall condition corrected the earth's balance. This requires some unique understanding. I am aware of that - and yet the destructive storms worked by mankind ultimately cannot be said to be any more evil than the earthquake.
While man's works may often appear destructive, you must not blame man's 'intent', nor must you ever make the error of confusing man with his works. For many well-intentioned artists, with the best of intentions, produce at times shoddy works of art, all the more disappointing and deplorable to them because of the initial goodness of their intent. Their lack of knowledge and techniques and methods then become quite plain.
By concentrating too deeply upon the world of newspapers and the negative reports of man's actions, it is truly easy to lose sight of what I tell you "is each man's and woman's basic good intent". That intent may be confused, poorly executed, tangled amid conflicts of beliefs, strangled by the bloody hands of murders and wars - and yet no man or woman ever loses it. That intent represents the hope of the species, and it has ever remained lit, like a bright light within each member of the species; and that good intent is handed down through the generations. It is far more potent, that illumination, than any hates or national grudges that may also be passed along.
"It is imperative, for any peace of mind, that you believe in that existence of man's innate good intent." It is shared by all other animals. Each animal knows that under certain conditions the other may fight or posture aggressively, or defend its nest. Each animal knows that in time of hunger it might be hunted by another. Except for those situations, however, the animals are not afraid of each other. They know that each other animal is of good intent. "Grant your own species the same."
Now: Make a distinction in your mind between man and man's works. Argue all you want against his works, as you read in your newspapers or errors, stupidities, treachery or war. Collect pages and reams of such material if it suits your fancy - and I am speaking not only to you who are reading this, but to anyone who hopes to find a hint of truth, peace of mind, or creativity. Collect books of man's failures, although I do not personally know why anyone would collect the worst works of any artist, and get pleasure in ripping them apart.
Man has produced some fine works: The high level; of verbal communication, the multitudinous varieties of emotional interactions and of cultural exchange, the facility with exteriorization of ideas and concepts, the reaches of the imagination - all of these, and many others, are unique in the universe. To identify man with his poorest works is to purposefully seek out the mars, the mistakes, of a fine artist, and then to condemn him. To do this is to condemn yourselves personally.
If a scientist says consciousness is the result of chance, or Darwin's theories say that basically man is a triumphant son of murderers, many people object. If you say, however, that men are idiots, or that they are not worth the ground they walk upon, you are saying the same thing. For you must be concerned with this reality as you know it; in those terms, to condemn man is to condemn the species as you know it, and the practical terms of your world. In your terms, while you live, and in the most pertinent terms of intimate sensation, your reality must be what you perceive in the framework of your time, and what you create within that framework as it is experienced.
Therefore, I entreat you not to behave as if man will destroy himself in some future - not to behave as if man is an imbecile, doomed to extinction, a dimwitted, half-crazy animal with a brain gone amuck. None of the prophesied destruction man so fears is a reality in your time; nor, for all the critical prophets through the ages, and the forerunners of doom, has the creativity of man destroyed itself in those terms. Man is in the process of becoming. His works are flawed - but they are the flawed apprentice works of a genius artist in the making, whose failures are indeed momentous and grotesque 'only' in the light of his sensed genius, which ever leads him and directs him onward.
When you are considering the future in your terms, constructive achievements are as 'realistic' as destructive ones. In those terms, each year of man's existence in fact justifies a more optimistic rather than pessimistic view.
You cannot place man's good intent 'outside' of the physical context, for outside of that context you do not have the creature that you know. You cannot say that nature is good, but spawned man, which is a cancer upon it, for nature would have better sense. You cannot say, either, that Nature - with a capital 'N' - will destroy man if he offends her, or that Nature - with a capital 'N' - has little use for its own species, but only wants to promote Life - with a capital 'L' - for Nature is within each member of each species; and with-out each member of each species, Nature - with a capital 'N' - would be nonexistent.
Because you are natural creatures, within you there is a natural state of being. That state can be an ever-present reservoir of peace, vitality, and understanding. The natural creature-validity of your senses must remain clear, and only then can you take full advantage of those intuition and visions that must come through you own private intersection with space and time. In those terms, the ever-actual integrity of nature everywhere surrounds you. It represents your direct experience."
(thanks ever S&J)
w/luv,
just me
