Nothing Matters

Except how you treat others.

The natural world can take care of itself.  Even if it regularly wipes out swathes of life, you must accept tsunamis and earthquakes as unavoidable. In the same way, eventually the sun and even the universe itself will die.  Perhaps in the distant future choices will open up which are almost unimaginable at present, but for now we can forget about it.

Humans are destroying the earth, but I suspect the planet will have the last laugh and all traces of our species will, mercifully, vanish. So again, let it be.

So we are subject to nature and, in effect, should cease to worry about it. If we get carried away by a giant meteorite, well that’s the way it goes. It’s happened before and it will happen again.

To that extent, the natural world does not matter. Shrug your shoulders. It’s none of your fault and you’re not god.

That should give you an element of peace. Or at least I find it does. A worry discarded.

Sure, if you want to be a physicist, carry on.  One day you might find an answer to it all. Or not. But there is no point fretting.  At least we have got to the point we realise natural disasters aren’t some bugger in the sky who wants to kick the shit out of us because we haven’t licked his wotsit well enough.

So if you leave physical reality outside the worry box, what are you left to torture yourself with?

Humanity. The human species. Self and other. Two distinct categories, if you leave out philosophical and religious speculation about the nature of the self.

So does the ‘self’ matter? Only, it seems, if you let it. Some say that self is an illusion anyway but for those of us who wish it was, our best option is to make it disappear.

I have been toying with disappearance for years.  It’s always two steps forward and then one back, but I seem to make progress. If “I” don’t exist then it’s difficult to imagine how I can make myself vanish, but there’s no point in making a meal of the whole thing.

How can I go within if I’m a mere illusion? Well again, does it matter what I am? I’ll just try. I have been trying.  And it seems to make “my” subjective life a whole lot better.

That’s going to sound self absorbed and selfish but it’s actually the very opposite. It’s only by cleaning up one’s own mess that we can give our species a chance to change. If everyone cleans his act up, voila. A better world.

Going within, meditating, quietly thinking about life does begin to make you realise what a shitty person you have been in the past.  “I have left undone those things I ought to have done, and I have done those things I ought not to have done”. As goes the glorious Book of Common Prayer.

Having realised this, you have a chance to change. To make peace with yourself and hence find it.

I’m far from perfect and always will be. But understanding that and trying to change does make me feel immensely better.  Maybe it might also make those around me a little happier. I hope so.

So at a very deep level I am coming to realise that I do not exist. Or at least that I have no importance in the scheme of things.  And that I should live quietly and decently in the recognition that nothing matters at all except how I treat others.

So, what about “others”?

Well what about them? There isn’t a lot you can do other than to be kind, help where you can.  So mostly you may as well bury your head in the sand and disconnect the internet.

That certainly increases your own peace and if it means you are less liable to mistreat others, then it will increase their peace as well.

Looking back over my rambling blog since it’s initiation in 2018, I can see that I have worried a great deal in the past about human behaviour and the sad state of our world.

It has upset, worried and frightened me, in equal measure.

I have ranted about violence and greed mostly. About the sad state of the untermensch. About selfishness and the sheer venality of our species.

What I have not done is to come up with any answers, largely because I don’t think there are any. Except for one, which I will end this post with a little later on.

Would a different political system make any difference? Should we adopt Marxism perhaps. Would a really well meaning and all powerful dictator set the world to rights?

Or anarchy. Abandon the idea of government altogether and have a chaotic free for all

No. None of this matters. While imperfect, democracy is about as good as we can hope for.

There is only one cure for all our ills. For all our savagery, greed and oppression.

Nothing matters.

Nothing in the entire universe, seen or unseen, matters.

Nothing in the theoretical multiverse matters, or the religious afterlife.

Except.

Except that if we really do want a cure, if we really do care about the apocalyptic state of our species, there is one simple thing we have to do and all will be well. And all manner of things will be well

Treat others with all the kindness and decency we would wish for ourselves.

That’s it. It’s that simple to create a heaven out of a dark and evil hell.

We have made hell on earth and only we have the power to change that.

Nothing else matters.