Power over nothing

Power... the eternal struggle of the monkey (especially the male).

We see all through those glasses: we see all life as a struggle to power.

Look at all the species, the better are the stronger, the best predator, grass, trees, snails... oh! so immensely powerful. How wish to be the apex predator.

Obviously, apex predators are far from being very successful in the story of our planet. If we look around what we see is cooperation and differentiation. Cells gave rise to sets of cells, which gave rise to all sorts of organisms, some with different organs, etc. Plants are one of the most successful kind of organisms, they are not "powerful" in the sense of the growling monkey with lots of females and submissive allies. They don't have even the concept of territory, they don't go to war.

How many species, successful species, have frontiers, go to war, mistreat even the females?

We long for power, that's where we came from, that is our inheritance. Had we come more from bonobos we would have a whole different kind of civilization.

But we are martial. We crave for power...

And although we can easily understand why (because gestation times are very prolonged, so if a male fights for the control of many females his genes will be more spread out in the long run, which leads to a preponderance on that kind of violent disposition) it is also very easy to see that such a disposition can never lead to very technologically advanced societies.

If you get a bunch of animals all trying to enhance their frontiers, they will tend to use their assassin powers on "the enemy". As technology evolves so does the means of mass murder. So it is simply a matter of time between we destroy a large part of what is now humanity.

The good news is: there's still at least a thousand more million years before Earth becomes to hot for life (our sun is getting brighter). In that time, just as life as previously developed photosynthesis, through all forms of organisms, so life will develop increasingly more expanded minds. We discovered symbolic language. We were able to speak it, then to write it, now to digitize it.

We have created many images of Gods. We are very slowly on a path to become like those that we describe.

So, even if our killing instincts use our technology to destroy ourselves, in the long run, those genes will be less frequent. Precisely for the same reasons that they were selected before: there are others better equipped to survive in the long run.

Beauty, cooperation, integration, sharing, love... are other qualities that will work much better now.  The more advanced the technology, the more advanced must the "heart" be, so that we can direct ourselves to the goals that truly bring us happiness and ecstasy.

Of course, many of us think that power is the best way for ecstasy and pleasure.

But what do you control really? If you have a slave, who is your slave? What dreams, aspirations, creativity, everything that makes one beautiful... what does he / she have? In the measure he / she is a slave, there will be nothing of that, just a willingness to obey every order, to fulfill every one of your desires.

By creating slaves you surround yourself with misery, with hollow specters, with adulators and parasites. You will become alone.

You have power over nothing really...

The world, out there, is much more beautiful, even the simple waves and the sea, have a music that escapes you, surrounded, as you are, in the prison of your own crusade for glory.

Loose yourself, understand that there is nothing over which you are powerful. You can die at any moment, you don't even know why you live, or what life is. You have control over nothing really, not even your self. You are a perfect unknown.

Look at the world outside...
it's full of mysteries... no one really understands it...

come... let's explore it, together, among all things of which we are part...

like brothers, like parts of a gigantic whole which we are just beginning to understand...

let's LIVE