Filed under: art/writing
“Pain and suffering are in themselves bad and should be prevented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that suffers. We are all animals of this planet. We are all creatures.” [1]
We are creatures of this majestic, perverse, brutal planet. Tiny organic specks glued by forces unseen to a pebble careening through a frozen, yawning void. Our very existence is so absurd — a complex systems of cells, composing a complex systems of organs, composing a complex systems of bodies, composing a complex system of societies — that one must appeal to the probability of that which is unlikely becoming real in an infinite stretch of time and space to accept it as true. We are not special. We are a statistic.
Complex systems are doomed to fail. Our cells suffer from generation loss. Daughter after daughter after daughter, the data is corrupted, and we fall — victims of entropy, victims of our own longevity.
Every second of our lives, a battle rages inside of us. Our cells attack and kill invading organisms. Viruses, bacteria, parasites, allergens, foreign bodies. This is not merely the world we live in, but the world that we are. Microcosms mimicking Earth’s brutality.
This is the world I see. This is the world I feel when I still myself and Be. The awe I feel is an awe of terror and humility at the feet of a vast expanse that does not give a shit. The solidarity we feel with nature is a solidarity of hostility, or worse.
Herzog, near the conclusion of Grizzly Man:
…what haunts me, is that in all the faces of all the bears that Treadwell ever filmed, I discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy. I see only the overwhelming indifference of nature. To me, there is no such thing as a secret world of the bears. And this blank stare speaks only of a half-bored interest in food. But for Timothy Treadwell, this bear was a friend, a savior. [2]
This exchange with Peter Watts (he is quite approachable for a Hugo Award winner) echoes Herzog’s sentiment:
“We enter as lords of the earth bearing strange powers or terror and mercy alike. . . [But] Human beings [should] love animals as. . . the knowing love the innocent, and the strong love the vulnerable.” [1]
Timothy Treadwell, as seen in Grizzly Man
Timothy Treadwell did not feel awe in the same way I feel it. He did not feel minuscule. He felt large enough and loved enough to go out and befriend the cold brutality, expecting that Nature would embrace him and hold him to its bosom like an anthropomorphic Mother.
A bear ate him.
We have the hubris to think we can manipulate our world to conform to our wishes. We will die and the pebble with continue to fly through space without us — Mankind, Animalkind, and Plantkind alike — implacable and impassive.
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Sources
1. Earthlings, DVD. Directed by Shaun Monson (USA: Nation Earth, 2005).
2. Grizzly Man, DVD. Directed by Werner Herzog (USA: Lions Gate Films, 2005).
