Why do we fear reality? Because reality, for the vast majority of people on this planet, is suffering. There is no armada of good, no army of heroes dedicated to righting the world or making it safe from fire and death. Good, where it does exist, is often punished and marginalized. This is a world where heroes die miserable and anonymous, and a truly villainous ethic, justified murder and justified poverty, operates the levers of power. Who could face such a thing? Surely, no one can internalize it. The world is not as it should be, and it is this tension that creates stress, fear, depression, nihilism and finally the energy that is born in darkness to transcend it all.
From death springs life. The entire universe is one long tale that begins in darkness. From nothing, something emerges. This is the legend of all existence, the incredible story that serves to tell every other. The world transcends itself, over and over, and it will do it again. The only difference is that this time, there will be ape minds to doubt the transcendence, and articulate their doubts into language.
Of course, we are in a far more unique and beautiful position than just this. We are the universe’s transcendence of itself. We are matter’s most absurd and impossible form, brain made from meat that can witness landscapes visible only to a ‘mind’. A floating forest, dangling above the endless sea. A great magenta tower that spirals past the clouds. Where are these images? What are they? What is their relationship to a world that is filled with beauty, and now bears minds that can imagine beauty of their own? How can apes create anything, least of all anything of value, anything that could be considered ‘genius’ or a ‘masterpiece’.
The creative potential of the universe has found its outlet – thinking apes. It is as absurd as it sounds, and this is the place that we live. A place where an explosion occurred in nothingness and ushered forth ‘matter’, which would be the foundation of all reality. This foundation, once comfortable as cosmic dust, planets and rocks, has become more than ever seemed possible. It has become us, whatever we are.
Why should matter ever grow eyes and ears, and see and hear the world? Why should it then be able to ask this question? Why should I, matter, be able to type this now and through meat alone, you understand it? Why should dust and rocks have given way to anything even remotely like this?
In the end, mind is the puzzle that no mind can solve. We can hope that there is something beyond mind to make sense of it all, some divine force, or we can make that force with our own hands. Through mind, we can seek to transcend ourselves. Does this sound absurd? Well so does conscious matter, and that’s the very thing enabling this ‘absurd’ thought. Madness can build upon madness into the sublime, so long as it tethered to something real. And after all, the ever-changing and implausible nature of this universe seems to be an undeniable reality.