Is acknowledging and accepting the end/decay of humanity——and having no intention or goal to continue/’save’ it and its inevitable/worsening environmental destruction—— inherently pessimistic? Could it be seen as optimistic/(even beautiful?) from a larger ecological/cosmic perspective? Could it be compared to a human accepting their own death nearing the end of life?
Tag: humanity
Question
If psychedelics can help terminally ill people accept/face death, rather than deny/resist against it, then can’t they also help humanity accept extinction, rather than deny/persist against it—without it being seen as pessimistic? Could psychedelic states show people that there is something bigger than them, and that fighting solely for the continuation of the human race——rather than giving in to the planet’s needs and other species’ best interests——is anthropocentric/misguided? Could they inform us of the best way to preserve what’s left of our planet rather than altering it continuously for our own preservation?
Question
Can/should humanity seek to manifest its destiny beyond extinction with technology or will it, like a virus, inevitably be purged out?
luce
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She is or ceaselessly becomes the place of the other who cannot separate himself from it. Without her knowing or willing it, she is then threatened because of what she lacks: a ‘proper’ place. She would have to re-envelop herself with herself, and do so at least twice: as a woman and as a mother. Which would presuppose a change in the world economy of space-time…
Who or what the other is, I never know. But the other who is forever unknowable is the one who differs from me sexually. This feeling of surprise, astonishment, and wonder in the face of the unknowable ought to be return to its locus: that of sexual difference… Sometimes a space for wonder is left to works of art. But it is never found to reside in this locus: between man and woman. Into this place came attraction, greed, possession, consummation, disgust, and so on. But not that wonder which beholds what it sees always as if for the first time, never taking hold of the other as its object. It does not try to seize, possess, or reduce this object, but leaves it subjective, still free…
A sexual or carnal ethics would require that both angel and body be found together. This is a world that must be constructed or reconstructed. A genesis of love between the sexes has yet to come about in all dimensions, from the smallest to the greatest, from the most intimate to the most political. A world that must be created or re-created so that man and woman may once again or at last live together, meet, and sometimes inhabit the same place…
How can we mark this limit of a place, of place in general, if not through sexual difference? But, in order for an ethics of sexual difference to come into being we must constitute a possible place for each sex, body, and flesh to inhabit.”
-Luce Irigaray
An Ethics of Sexual Difference
Questions
on John Stewart’s Evolutionary Manifesto and his concept of ‘intentional evolution’ to propel humanity beyond current environmental/existential crises.
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If all that came to be in humanity goes extinct, was it really for nothing if it created beauty? /// Can an individual be a ‘self-evolved intentional evolutionary’ and also refuse to procreate? What will happen if intentional evolutionaries refrain from having children and the masses continue to procreate ‘blindly via trial and error?’ /// What’s so bad about leaving no trace? Isn’t the goal of continuation selfish in some ways? Isn’t the desire to reach further into time and space another form of manifest destiny? Is it arrogant to assume human capability to advance so far beyond? /// Can anyone actually unfetter themselves from their biological past? Is that ability/inability to disconnect an illusion or encoded within us? Can it really be rewired? /// If more and more people begin to experience a mindful gap in their consciousness, some space between their embodied awareness and thoughts/reactions to others/the outside world, then won’t they become more robotic/mechanical? How will this impact human relations? Can’t this gap actually take people out of the moment and into a headspace of calculation and separation? Can’t people progress and evolve intentionally and still be completely immersed within direct sensation/reaction, even if that reaction can at times be ‘wrong’ or less than productive? Will the mindful delay in reaction further connect or disconnect humans? (If intervention in connection/disconnection is possible.)
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on further thought… and why we should consider evolutionary history and trajectory…
Maybe the more we delude a tilt into the sheerly cultural, and ‘extract’ ourselves from our evolution/biology/environment, the more sick and disconnected we become internally and externally. And reliant on pharmaceuticals. Anyone who says ‘biological determinism’ as if it’s a bad concept is deeply disconnected from their origins, body, Earth. We were born! We are here! We have senses! We are not floating purely in culture, but deeply grounded in matter, in physical embeddedness. And what a relief. We are together in this. But right now: I’m okay with the oblivion. With some Earthly fever clearing humanity out.
American addicts
It started with a collective itch, absorbing unseen elements. We left and met here. Hopeful the unknown would be better than this. Still craving, switching spaces. The united states of bodies on the ground. Just human. Sure, we can migrate to a new state. We can evolve. But what’s next? Awareness morphing into control. A meditative/medicated existence, far removed from the jolts of the past. Blacking out the rising sun. Muting emotions. Tucking fear into a belt. Veins popping out. A splitting people. They say it doesn’t affect them, but children will singe. Blur this dirty scene, a failed humanity. Closed eyes see reality. Who cares if we can zone out? Focus on the breath. Unthinkable for many. Those who cannot escape. Those before us. Circling around fire. Making sense of sounds. They couldn’t afford to shut it all off. There is no switch.
Mist
You struggled to park an invisible car on Fillmore because your piercing was stuck to a fire hydrant. Stuck like the rest of us. Under another spell of moral authority. Believing real emotions drawn from deceptive acts. A medium slips voodoo bags in all the right places. A spiritual advisor advises a touch. A guru reaches too far. The priest hides it all. Power seeks vulnerability, speaking in silence. Those who can’t afford buy lotto tickets. Talking to God, never hearing back. Hoping and hopeless for another chance. Anything to divert attention and responsibility from this current mess. Enters the magician. Playing with projection to manipulate. To create a feeling of awe, allure, amazement. Shock value. And we love to feel, even fear. The heightened pulses and rising temperatures. Cranking up fields. Just the way the man behind the curtain likes it: wrapped in a mist of confusion. Divine delirium quiets. Shh, don’t question it. No reason to reason with fog. But what really happened? Pure deception and perception. Hinging until it breaks and you see the truth underneath the pain, the shame, the neglect, the harm. A universal craving for psychological attention. Falling into traps and release.
Question
Can the inequality of psychological distress due to migration be seen as a bioethics issue?
La ciudad de la eterna primavera
Where the sidewalks stop. Sending a letter in the mail can cost you 120,000 COP/41 USD, but a joint 2,000 COP/.70 USD. Every new apartment comes with servants’ quarters attached to the laundry room. Buses and trucks push black clouds into your pores. Would you like meat with your meat or more meat? Men, this. Women, that. Everyone is looking. ¿BIEN O QUE? Run before you get hit. Breast and butt enhancement. Worship God and a virgin. “Oh my, how this place has changed.” Hasta abajo. High interest rates at banks. GOOOOOOOOL. Thunder. Fruit you’ve never tried. Grocery lines that are never express. Rat tails. Arepas con quesito. Please take a number. Maximum capacity. “No, no, really, hire a driver.” Mr. Tea at the country club. Pico y placa. Unfinished buildings, unfinished business. Días violentos en la comuna 13. Mazda, Mazda, Mazda, Renault. Venezuelan migrants trying to get their families out. Saturday sin, Sunday mass. “Yo no creo en las brujas pero que las hay las hay.” Numerology readings and pink quartz somehow under your pillow. European backpackers flocking to resort hostels to sit on the beach and drink beer. Selfies so they know. Chicharrón everything. “Restaurants don’t let me park my taxi outside when I’m a customer, so I don’t really eat out.” Don’t question, have faith. Buenas. Nonconsensual reggaeton. Got cut in line for the cable line. +DMT, -TV written all over the city. People say hi. Hooks under the table. Don’t give papaya. White lace on a five-year-old girl. Her brother almost went priest. Juice with added sugar or milk? Postobón brings the family together. Weekend lunches into TV marathons. Magic realism can’t extinguish the trash fires, but the butterflies are real. Long tees asking if you wanna buy some coke. More likely perico (not the bird). Trauma. Un tinto, porfa. Bricks. Near misses on motorcycles. Feedback loops break with a punch in the face. Two condors poisoned in Tayrona. “It’s God’s Will.” Cream paint job with tinted windows. Still a patrón. Don’t say his name. Salsa, merengue, bachata, cumbia, vallenato, champeta. Brave bicyclists wearing facemasks. Nada cambia. Single/American/male tourists who often refer to themselves as digital nomads and openly cackle over the conversion rate. Parents hustling candy at traffic lights. Sniffing gasoline will suppress the hunger. Medellín es una chimba. A child begs for money while an older man watches from a distance. The leaves will breathe it all in and spit it all out until the valley suffocates.
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