Читать книгу The Cosmic Ocean - Paul K. Chappell - Страница 19

When I was a child I felt like a freak. I hated this feeling back then, but today I consider it a gift, because it allowed me to see the human condition in a way that can help us solve our greatest problems. As I mentioned in the previous chapter, I grew up in Alabama feeling like an outcast because of my mixed-race blood. My sense of alienation grew worse due to several factors: my father’s paranoia caused him to socially isolate me, I was an only child, and my home environment was violent, unpredictable, and terrifying.

What is the difference between an outcast and a freak? Outcasts are treated by their community like they don’t belong. Based on my experiences, freaks are outcasts who have experienced such a high degree of alienation that they think they will never belong. After feeling like an outcast for so many years, I began to feel like a freak. But feeling like a freak can have its advantages, because it allowed me to see the world from a unique perspective.

We begin to grow as human beings when we work to expand and deepen our perspective. As I observed the world from the viewpoint of an outsider, I made an effort to see farther and deeper, like an explorer who journeys to see what is over the next hill or a scientist who peers beneath the shallow surface. When I looked farther and deeper into the human condition, I saw surprising features on the landscape of our shared humanity.

Some of the features that make us more similar than different as human beings truly shocked me. During my junior year at West Point, as I was contemplating suicide after a lifetime of agony, I thought, “What if all human beings are freaks, even if they don’t realize it? What if I am not alone?”

Although my traumatic upbringing gave me a unique perspective, I am certainly not alone in my suffering. I used to stare in the mirror and hate the shape of my Asian eyes, wishing I looked white so that I could belong. But haven’t most people shared an experience similar to mine, even if it was not with the same intensity? How many people, especially in our society, have stared in a mirror and wished they could change how they look? How many have wanted to be taller, slimmer, more muscular, or younger? How many have gazed at their reflection and desired a nicer head of hair, clearer skin, less wrinkles, a flatter stomach, or the ability to change the shape and size of their facial features and body parts? How many have been tormented by the feeling that they are not pretty enough, handsome enough, or good enough?

Human beings are unusual, because no other species on the planet, as far as we know, stares in the mirror and thinks, “I hate my body. I hate my face. I hate myself.” No other species suffers from self-destructive eating disorders because it perceives itself as being too fat. No other species hates its body because it does not look like a supermodel, or feels so ugly that it ponders suicide.

I will discuss how mass media influences our perception of beauty in a later chapter. In the meantime, it is important to understand that mass media influences us so powerfully through images because it understands the human condition. Human beings gather more information about the world through our eyesight than any other sense, and our large brains give us a level of self-awareness so high it is often painful. Our heightened self-awareness is a blessing that made us more adaptable on the harsh African savannah, but it is also a curse.

Many other species also demonstrate self-awareness, but as far as we know, no other species can become depressed, addicted to drugs, and suicidal as a result of being tormented by its self-awareness, even when it has freedom, good physical health, companionship, and a belly full of food. No other creature is so tortured by its ability to think that it searches for escape in alcohol. A female friend once told me, “I get drunk to stop my mind from worrying, to stop my thoughts from racing, to stop feeling anxious about the future, to stop feeling regretful about the past, to stop my brain from thinking. These are some of the ways alcohol allows me to relax and have fun.” Of course, alcohol can also amplify emotions in some people, causing them to become more regretful, depressed, and angry when they are drunk.

A male friend told me something similar, but added, “Alcohol makes me less self-conscious. I often feel nervous and anxious, but alcohol makes me brave enough to talk to women, which is why it is called ‘liquid courage.’ Because I am self-conscious and worried about people judging me, I can be more social and carefree when I am drunk.” As far as we know, no other species has such trouble calming and relaxing its mind that it searches for peace in outlets such as alcohol, meditation, and music, just to name a few.

All animals fear dying when their lives are in immediate danger, but they seem at peace with nature’s laws such as the inevitability of old age and death. As far as we know, only human beings are haunted so much by the fear of old age and death that they can desire plastic surgery to appear younger, worry if there is life after death, and see themselves at war with nature’s laws. I remember being around seven years old and lying in bed late one night, unable to sleep, overcome with a sense of dread and meaninglessness, as I realized that my parents and every single person on earth would someday grow old and die. I thought, “Why does the world have to be this way? Why does everyone have to die? Why is life so painful? Where did the world, death, and pain come from? Why am I here? Does anyone know the answers to these questions?”

Since then I have been searching for answers to those questions. When I became a teenager I realized that virtually all people, at some point in their lives, ask themselves these same questions. These questions bind us together as human beings, but the way we attempt to answer them can divide us. When two religions answer these questions in different ways, it can create conflicts that are not easily resolved.

Every other species on the planet seems to know its purpose and does not need to find a meaning for its existence, but our large brains have made human beings into the most unusual creatures on the planet. We must seek purpose and meaning as other animals search for food and water. When we are unable to find purpose and meaning in the midst of our suffering, the pain can be unbearable.

As a result of our craving for purpose and meaning, human beings seem to be the only organism in the world capable of committing suicide because life feels meaningless. Even more unusual, we seem to be the only organism capable of hating itself and its entire species due to trauma. Psychologist Erich Fromm described human beings as “the freak of the universe,” because our large brains make us aware of our inability to change the laws of nature and our powerlessness to stop the inevitability of death. Fromm explained:

Self-awareness, reason, and imagination have disrupted the “harmony” which characterizes animal existence. Their emergence has made man into an anomaly, into the freak of the universe. He is part of nature, subject to her physical laws [such as the aging process and death] and unable to change them, yet he transcends the rest of nature … Being aware of himself, he realizes his powerlessness and the limitations of his existence. He visualizes his own end: death …

Man is the only animal … that can feel evicted from paradise. Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape.1

When Fromm said human beings are the only animal “that can feel evicted from paradise,” he was referring to the Garden of Eden. In the Bible, the story of the Garden of Eden depicts humanity as an oddball among all other animals. In the story, Adam and Eve eat a piece of fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Consuming the fruit gives them a new awareness that causes them to feel embarrassed about their exposed genitals. Their embarrassment symbolizes a feature of the human condition we just discussed, when we explored how human beings are the only creatures who can feel deeply insecure about a natural aspect of their physical appearance.*

This new and heightened human awareness expands the thinking of Adam and Eve in other ways, resulting in their eviction from the Garden of Eden, which is a paradise where old age, suffering, and death do not exist. Exiled to the harsh and unforgiving wilderness, they must grow old and die against their will.

In addition to the story of the Garden of Eden, countless stories from cultures all over the world depict human beings as oddballs different from other animals, outcasts from nature, or freaks of the universe who suffer because of our heightened human awareness. The San people of Africa (also known as “Bushmen”) are one of the oldest human populations, and they have a story similar to the Garden of Eden. In this story, fire is a metaphor for humanity’s heightened awareness. Religious scholar G. R. Evans explains:

A Kalahari bushmen’s creation story tells how once people and animals lived beneath the surface of the earth with the Lord of Life, Kaang (Käng). This was a golden age, an age of happiness, when there was no quarrelling or warfare and everything was bathed in a light which did not come from the sun. Then Kaang decided to make a more wonderful world above ground.

He created a great tree whose branches stretched out across the whole world. Under its roots he made a passageway down to the place where people and animals were living comfortably together. Then he led the first man up to the surface, followed by the first woman, and then all the people. After that he brought up the animals, who rushed out eagerly, and some of them swarmed up into the branches of the tree.

Kaang gave them all instructions. They were to continue to live together peacefully, people and animals. He gave especially firm instructions to the people not to build fires. If they built fires evil would come. They promised and he left them to their lives, moving away but continuing to watch over them.

In their underground world it had always been mysteriously light, but above ground the sun set and it grew dark. The people were frightened because they could not see what was happening and, lacking the fur the animals wore, the humans felt cold. Someone suggested building a fire to give light and heat, forgetting Kaang’s warning. But the fire frightened the animals, who ran away to live in mountains and caves, and people and animals lost the ability to talk to one another.2

These primordial stories about human vulnerability, along with the large amount of psychological problems in the modern world, show that the primary difference between human beings and other animals is not that we drive cars or go to the moon, but that human beings can perceive themselves as cut off from nature and be deeply troubled by their very existence. In the ancient Greek epic the Iliad, written by Homer nearly three thousand years ago, Zeus says, “There is nothing alive more agonized than man of all that breathe and crawl across the earth.”3

Although our heightened human awareness can cause us to feel like outcasts from nature, which is symbolized by the eviction of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, our heightened human awareness also strengthens us by expanding our ability to think, enabling us to conceive of things that were once inconceivable. The heightened awareness and expanded thinking of our large brains allow us to change aspects of nature to a degree that exceeds the ability of any other species. This gave our nomadic ancestors a powerful survival advantage.

For example, we can change animal skins into warm clothes that protect our bodies during winter. We can change raw meat into cooked food through the use of fire. We can change sticks and stones into a wide variety of tools. We can change wild wolves into loyal and loving dogs. We can change wild plants into cultivated crops. We can use irrigation to change dry land into moist soil. We can combine copper and tin, changing them into bronze. We can combine iron and carbon, changing them into steel. We can change the ink that flows from a pen into words, sentences, and ideas. We can create ideas that change the world.

But despite all our brilliance, we are unable to change basic laws of nature such as the irreversible flow of time and the inevitability of death. We can change wrinkles into smooth skin through plastic surgery, but it is only an illusion. We cannot truly change time and death, which gradually consume all that is alive. Worst of all, we are aware of our powerlessness to change the laws of nature. Although we can use weapons to stop lions and hyenas from killing our family, we are aware of our inability to stop time and death from eventually killing us and everyone we love. Indeed, our incredible capacity for self-awareness is a blessing, but it is also a curse.

Our powerlessness to change the laws of nature, despite our vast intelligence that allows us to change so many aspects of nature, makes us fragile and vulnerable as a species. Like a tragic Greek hero filled with hubris, we may believe we have total mastery over nature, but Thor reminds us of the truth. In Nordic mythology there is a story about Thor, the mighty god of thunder, participating in an odd wrestling match.

When Thor visited a royal palace in the land of the giants, the king challenged him to wrestle an old, tiny, toothless woman. Thor accepted the challenge. Walking across the large hall where the king sat watching from his throne, Thor wrapped his muscular arms around the old woman, trying to throw her to the ground, but she would not budge. To Thor’s surprise, the old woman gradually overpowered him, subduing the powerful Nordic god. The king who issued the challenge was not surprised, however, because the old woman was actually a clever disguise for time and death. Not even a god as strong as Thor could defeat time.

Understanding our fragility and vulnerability as human beings increases my empathy for humanity. The story of Thor is a metaphor for our inability to stop time, and one thing all human beings (and all forms of life) have in common is that time wrestles with us all. Economist and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin explains how our understanding of human fragility and vulnerability is essential for empathy:

Around eight years of age a child learns about birth and death … that they have a one and only life, that life is fragile and vulnerable, and one day they are going to die. That’s the beginning of an existential trip, because when a child learns about birth and death and they have a one and only life, they realize how fragile and vulnerable life is. It’s very tough being alive on this planet, whether you’re a human being, or a fox navigating the forest.

So when a child learns that life is vulnerable and fragile and that every moment is precious and that they have their own unique history, it allows the child then to experience another’s plight in the same way, that [other] person, or other being—it could be another creature—has a one and only life, it’s tough to be alive, and the odds are not always good. So if you think about the times that we’ve empathized with each other—our fellow creatures—it’s always because we’ve felt their struggle … and we show solidarity with our compassion.

Empathy is the opposite of utopia. There is no empathy in heaven … There isn’t any empathy in heaven because there’s no mortality. There is no empathy in utopia because there is no suffering. Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgement of death and the celebration of life and rooting for each other to flourish and be. It’s based on our frailties and our imperfections, so when we talk about building an empathic civilization, we’re not talking about utopia, we’re talking about the ability of human beings to show solidarity not only with each other, but our fellow creatures who have a one and only life on this little planet.4

In addition to the biblical story of the Garden of Eden and Jeremy Rifkin’s scientific perspective, many philosophical and religious traditions also recognize that human beings are oddballs—freaks of the universe who can brilliantly change so many aspects of nature, yet remain powerless to change the laws of nature. People may try to repress this awareness by pretending they will never grow old and die, but deep in our unconscious mind, we realize death eventually comes for us all, whether we are male or female, European or Asian, rich or poor. Realizing that death is a part of our shared humanity, philosopher Marcus Aurelius said death made the Macedonian king Alexander the Great and his lowly stable boy equal in the end, by reducing them both to atoms.5 As the Bible says, “For dust you are and to dust you will return.”6

However, this book is not about death. It is about the mystery and beauty of life. Many people perceive the inevitability of time, old age, and death as a source of darkness, but later in this book we will uncover abundant sources of light hidden in this darkness. In the first chapter I explained why human beings are the most unusual predators in the world. In this chapter I discuss why human beings are the most unusual creatures on the planet. And later in this book I will reveal why human beings are the most unusual form of dust, capable of choosing to drown in darkness or bathe in light. Understanding our unusual human condition has made me proud to be human, allowed me to walk the hidden road to peace, and strengthened my empathy for humanity and all life.

My other books explore human nature in ways that empower us to solve our national and global problems. But in this book we will explore the nature of reality itself. We will explore the nature of existence and the universe. My other books focus on the understanding and tools we need to create peace between human beings. But only by exploring the nature of the universe, which I call the cosmic ocean, can we learn to make peace with our delicate ecosystem, the unchangeable laws of nature, and even death. Human survival in our fragile future will depend not only on our ability to create peace between human beings. It will also depend on our ability to make peace with the problem of human existence.