Terms of Indifference...

Image: Gall Source

"The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light." Stanley Kubrick, Wired Magazine - "Beyond" issue, December 2014, on the last page.

Topic: existentialism

Before we can exhale from the violence of 2012 and Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis and Sandy Hook; 2013 and Renisha McBride; 2014: Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, we barely breathe the air of a new year without the reminder of violence we visit towards one another.

I could only offer my condolences to two coworkers - one, a French teacher I met at my last high school, the other a current industry colleague. My fellow teacher had just celebrated a birthday. Me to her: " ____, I'm so sorry. I mourn for the loss of your countrymen." Her only reply: "It's a shame...:'(" I only studied French in high school and college; I am not French, but I am human. We are...ALL...human.

I can only offer my condolences to the affected families now in Paris. On 9/11/2001 the world became Americans for a brief, fleeting instant of solidarity. Tragedy should not be the glue of humanity, but it often is.

The artificial barriers we've erected for ourselves - ethnicity, language, Melanin, neighborhoods, politics, power, religion, wealth - all are centered in terms of grappling with that indifference, and for some it is terrifying enough to do violence. The aforementioned barriers are what made many of us "anointed, chosen, set apart; special." It is how we've defined ourselves in our villages and valleys until encounters with other tribes over the hill; in other valleys or on other continents made us question our own uniqueness. It is the first thing that comes to mind when we say: "I/We am/are FILL IN THE BLANK." Because of this terror of cosmic indifference, we seek after something I've heard referred tongue-in-cheek in urban slang as the "Nirvana complex" (more formally, the Nirvana fallacy), which is on a subconscious level, and socially quite ecumenical. I personify it and construct its sentence:

"The world would be perfect, if everyone was just like 'us': FILL IN THE  BLANK."

The Earth was once thought flat...until it was found it was not. The Earth was thought the center of the universe...until Galileo peered through a telescope and became a heretic with his church. Melanin was the arbiter of all things superior deciding laws and living spaces, until science - with the breathtaking exception of even Nobel laureates mistaken promotion of the pseudoscience Eugenics - found "we are all Africans" (more correctly: former residents of Pangaea; more precisely: Earthlings), thoroughly discrediting lynching, slavery, racist coded laws, segregation, Jim Crow, red lining; xenophobia. Yes, African and Arab tribes sold fellow tribesmen; Aristotle had views pro-slavery of Greeks owning other Greeks, as well as many philosophers through the ages: that does not justify the ownership of another human being; nor (admittedly, bigoted) satire justify the murder of 12 fellow humans or speaking for an entire religion's adherents. Je suis humain...nous sommes humains.

"The world would be perfect, if everyone was just like 'us': FILL IN THE  BLANK."

Note the Drake Equation from the SETI institute and its namesake Dr. Frank Drake, is the method radio astronomers use to peruse the heavens for intelligent extraterrestrial life. The last factor, L = the length of time such (intelligent) civilizations release detectable signals into space - for the Planet Earth, that is under question and debatable.

The "Internet of Things" is quickly becoming reality as is the terrifying fact with some any change, any technological or social advancement, there is a seismic, regressive reaction from those who peer into the vast darkness and find their worlds getting smaller. We need a global conversation about our genuine meaning, before our brief light is dimmed to an indifferent universe that will not mourn our species' self-destructive passing. It will just be forever...silent.

“When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind.” Jiddu Krishnamurti