Underworld Devolution
How damaged of a reflection are we?
I had no sleep last night whatsoever and my eyes are swollen and my head is pounding. My mind is racing thanks to the three cups of coffee I had on an empty stomach. I cut the first period. But still wasn't pleased with the day, it dragged on for so freaking long it was almost unimaginable. Whatever, you needn't know that, I just needed an intro.
Philosophy class today - now that was an eye-opener. See, the class teacher is simply always right. He acts up like Socrates and keeps making us deduce and conclude stuff, but then turns into Protagoras and simply kills every argument we come up with in our over-stuffed, smoking, hormonal, adolescent minds. The fact that he has a nice ass kinda helps his case though. Again I digress, excuse my pointless ramblings.
See, Plato was the talk of the day and his theory that the idea was the origin of all things was the main point of the class. Now, our teacher just wouldn't be himself if he didn't violate us with his incessant interrogation on the aforementioned subject. For chrissakes the guy has been dead for how many years now?! NO ONE CARES. I kept screaming in my head - whether that was the coffee or the hormones, I've no idea. But yeah, NO ONE CARES. I had to repeat for emphasis. Yet his questions were starting to hit home, y'know?
As per usual, I spoke up and answered them just for the sake of trying once again to finally beat him at his own game. He asked whether there is such a thing as a perfect circle. Now, we could easily pick up the right tool and draw it, right? But no, because no matter how precise we are, there will always be parts of it which will stand out and break the circle, even if they aren't visible but with the help of a microscope. So with some brainstorming with my bank neighbor and a couple of laughs, I figured that the perfect circle indeed didn't exist, not in the physical dimension at least. I was right. (Like, no way, right?)
Plato said that this world was but a flawed carbon copy of the ideal we all keep in our heads and which exists completely independent of us as it had existed before we came along. The physical reflection of that idea is too flawed to ever be as impeccable.
I guess this is the part where the perfectionists start pulling their hair.
There is no such thing as perfection. And as much as I find it funny and relieving in a way, I've started to wonder. Mostly because as my teacher wouldn't be himself if he weren't an annoying Johnny Depp look-alike, I wouldn't be myself if I weren't left brooding at the end of the day.
If we were simply a mirrored, but faulty counterpart of the ideal then there are no such perfect things as goodness, justice or sanity. In other words we all simply strive towards being good, fair and sane. We strive towards perfection though it is very likely that that perfection is simply unreachable. End of story. This conclusion wasn't why I took this as a subject of my column, of course, so...
... I brooded some more.
That striving can either be the end of us or the fuel to keep us going. See, why bother with trying to be something we're clearly never going to end up being? Why keep up the charade when we will never be exactly like that ideal that had existed before us and will keep on existing after we've long passed? What's the point?!
No, I'm not depressed you twats.
I found my answer.
Though that circle we draw in our Geometry classes isn't perfect, it's as close to perfection as we can possibly make it. I believe that is the point of living. Striving to be better, faster, stronger - yeah, exactly like that Kanye West and Daft Punk song. We get closer to it with every generation.
But we're also tripping over massive impediments on our eternal journey - it's like the whole population has suddenly got infected with some sort of a social cancer and our manners are dying away as quickly as burnt out neurons in our TV-fried brains.
Our society is undergoing a social devolution.
With every generation we're becoming more barbaric, more cruel, more senseless, more selfish, more crude, more ignorant. The truth of it is almost maddening to the point of emigrating onto Mars. Which will have to happen anyway since we're destroying the Earth so fast even the natural disasters can no longer keep up with our pace. I mean, Katrina? We totally outdid that bitch in Hiroshima.
It is up to us and every future generation to start striving again. The perfection is dangling right in front of our noses, we can see it, almost touch it, almost taste it and we should keep going. Perhaps we'll never sink our teeth into it, but sticking out our tongues for a quick taste is almost enough, right?
It's the strive that keeps us going.
When did we start settling for less?
