How to be “saved”?
How to find “salvation” in our modern world?
I think we have to deal with what we know, know to be true…
I am life… life is transitory…I am transitory… I will live for
a relatively short period of time and then I die… pure and simple…
my existence will be of short duration…….
but the cells, the atoms within my body, have existed since the beginning of time
and will continue to exist long after this current form of being human, my
next existence will compose of many, many different living creatures……
as my current atoms, cells will decompose into something else and my individual
cells, atoms will take different forms, dog or cat or bird or bee or something else
entirely……
we exist within forces that limit or control who we are…
we have natural forces which limit us, gravity, evolution, chemistry…
we also have forces in ism’s and ideologies that also limit us…
we are encased within such ideologies as religion, capitalism,
communism and as we are encased, we exist without any
recourse or voice in or ability to change those forces that
dominate us………we have no say in capitalism because
we are determined by “the invisible hand of god”
which is the market forces outside of our control and we
have no say about those market forces……….
so, how do we understand the “now what” given
this understanding of these forces which give us no control over
or no say about them……
we must work within the very narrow limits of what is left after
the forces that are, limit our actions…….
for example, we exist within the market forces of capitalism which
don’t allow us much room for freedom or action given we are determined
by those market forces…….
I can say no, no to those market forces and not allow myself to be
a victim of capitalism but that leaves me to a very short and miserable
existence as I cannot survive on my own… I cannot control my existence,
to clothe and feed and house myself outside of the forces of capitalism…
to do so is death… and the main rule of existence is “thou shall do whatever
it takes to survive”……. that is a rule of evolution that has been
written into our very DNA… the very fabric of who we are is
written by the forces of evolution… the rules which we cannot
disobey without direct and immediate consequences…
we must eat and we must drink water and we must sleep
and we must release body waste and we must have contact
with other human beings… these rules, these forces of evolution,
we must obey them… we have no choice…so can I be “saved”
from these rules or commands of evolution? no, we cannot change
these rules from the force of evolution………. so, to be able to
understand what is possible in regards to being “saved”
from the forces that dominate our lives, we must also understand
what we can or cannot change…
I am a transitory being who has to follow certain forces, the force of
gravity… I cannot change as I cannot change the rules of evolution…
I am forced by these other forces to have limited ability to change…
I cannot change my need to eat as I cannot change the force of
gravity… so what can I change?
these forces which dictate what are our possible actions or reactions,
what can we have control over or have any say about in regards to these
forces?
we cannot change the natural forces that dictate who we are, gravity and
evolution and the circling of the stars… but we can change the ism’s
and ideologies that dictate our lives but I cannot change those isms’ and
ideologies by myself… that is the next lesson to be learned… the forces that
dictate or dominate like capitalism and communism and religion, I cannot
change or have any say over them as one solitary individual……
it takes millions of people to effect change in those forces like
capitalism or communism…….or religion………….
as individual people we cannot change the forces of the world that
hold us hostage… but we can try to convince millions of others to
change… and therein lies another possibility to be “saved”…
the coordination of millions of people… we can be “saved” with the
collective actions of millions in changing those ism’s and ideologies
that have us having no say or control in our lives………
now I am the first to admit that what I have offered has
many difficulties… but that is the point of being saved…if it
was easy, everyone would do it……….
so how are we to be “saved” from the forces which dominate our lives?
Kropotkin