-5- Learn and Conquer
Learning is what we need, conquering is what we do.
The following paragraphs are an exploration of why I think nature permits us to be learners. Hope you enjoy...
Learning is as much a preventative process as it is a generative process. Coincident with the flowering of new knowledge is also something like the pouring of a freshly laid slab of cement on a bed of grass. All life immediately below this new formation, now destined to die, wastefully. But right next to the rocky surface, a flower blooms in fertile soil, drawing energy from the land, growing, and spreading seeds of its own.
When we say yes to a supposed truth, we also say no to an entire universe of contradiction. We create a singular version of a reality, and simultaneously create an infinite amount of 'non-realities' - of opposites. We stop the endlessly flowing nature of experience, and in its halted position, we build cities. In doing this, we learn the power of rigidity, the power of pure definition. We stop to smell the air of our newly perceived vision, and start to act upon the mechanisms of what we have come to know. This also means that rather than being free to openly question, we are forced to coalesce to doctrines of faith, of knowing what works and what doesn't - of what the unifying belief is. You see... the truth is sacred, to reject it becomes dangerous.
What I wish to point out is a frequent misconception of the act of learning itself. Part of learning is to also learn to negate entire sections of the world, to denote them as seemingly conquered, or unconquerable. We are always taught to organize our shelves alphabetically, to categorize and label. Every box in its rightful place, neatly stored, and easily retrievable. It's difficult to muster the energy to re-organize when we've just finished cleaning up and cleaning out our closets.
With iterations of learned material the problem is compounded over time - centuries, millennia? It is not for the faint of heart to report on what others do not see. Show me the man who would step into that flame; he may be dead soon.
Life as we know it is a series of contradictions that are endlessly unfolding. We learn whatever nature permits us to learn, or at least whatever our senses permit us to detect, but as an expense for this luminosity, nature - our nature - attempts to balance the act by darkening the remainder of the picture. However, this attempt to balance is ultimately a very mysterious one, because as far as I can see, it does not matter that anything I have stated previously may or may not be true. Nature doesn't need to be proven right - we handle that duty for ourselves. And so instead of truth, what matters is that we are on this earth as creatures in need of knowledge. We must find the answers we are searching for; and yet, as the mystery reveals, we have only ourselves to verify whether our answers are worthy of being called true.
But I wish to stress something else: if nature were undecipherable, then she would not have bothered to create any such beings capable of investigation, for what would be the point? Nature is not known to waste energy. She is also not known for giving answers. And yet, we have no choice but to live in her, with her, and through her. I suppose what I can offer is this: we harness the bounty that nature gives us and thus turn it into knowledge for our own sake, so that we may continue to refine it in the ways that suit our most immediate needs, and all the while, we continue to keep our faith in her continuous supply of this living essence. Learning to do this is what we have come to learn. Who taught us, you might ask?
When we needed warmth, we burnt logs. When we needed to travel, we carved out wooden discs. When we needed to build, we forged tiny metal picks. When we needed to see, we bent glass. When we needed to remember, we scribbled onto thinly veiled sheets and covered it with binding. When we needed strength, we exploded the pressurized remains of past eons and compared it to the power of our trusty steeds. When we wanted to live longer, we injected our bodies with invisible agents. When we wanted a deeper connection with one another, we codified and surfed on networks in the clouds. When we wanted to escape our one true home, we blasted ourselves in defiance of where nature would have us stand upright.
We are always pushing out against the forces of nature, that includes our own. The entire fact of our history is one of learning how to conquer. It isn't at all that we must cease to learn, that we must give up on nature's call to answer it. Rather, it is that we must cease to stand still, we must cease to turn off the spotlight. Nature wanted us to know something all along. We must learn to never stop learning!
LP
Thanks for reading. Exploring the nature of this human life and of the universe that permits it is what I love to do most. If you’re at all interested in hearing more, then consider a free subscription to Layman Philosophy.