Chapter 28
Existence, Materialism, and Security
Existence, or Cosmology Revisited and Expanded
Perhaps, given the fact that any force on an object that thrusts it to 670 million miles per hour and beyond will add additional mass for that object,139 instead of a big bang and dark matter fragments cooling and congealing to subatomic particles and beyond, the mass of the universe is merely residue or byproduct of pent up energy propelled at extreme force but without the ability to go beyond the physical restrictions of what is now referred to as the speed of light. In any case, solid as life seems to be, it is quite fluid except to the perspectives of those who have to create lives for themselves in this state and know no other reality like ants actively building a colony that will soon blow away with any remnants to be submerged subsequently in a deluge. Or perhaps our reality is more like that of fish that in having to reside where they are and, because of the water pressure at great depths that would pulverize them were they to fully descend, have to see contours of landscape and landmarks within the ocean waves themselves and by familiarity with the residents within.
Mass to energy and energy to mass, we build homes and families and believe them to be solid and permanent for no other reason than that we must. The lack of reality might in a weaker moment make a man feel a desire to go ballistic against the contents of this dream; but if anything, he should pity his fellow creatures and himself for having no other choice but to undergo this charade, living lives as though they were solid substances without end while knowing otherwise.
Materialism
So, it is understandable why one would become avaricious, errantly believing that money, which does deliver one from a good many minor catastrophes in this networking of men of various talents and skills in the division of labor,140 will shore up his existence. More insightful men, always cognizant of the ephemeral nature of all things and that other sentient beings are no different than they are, will find the inequities that abound from nature and society intolerable. Men of this nature share with others to the best that they can while at the same time acknowledging that in such a world they have to look after their own interests too as no one else will; but few are they who part so far from illusions.
Security
Cannibalistic predation is rife in society, and deny it as one may, society is a sublimated version of what he sees in the state of nature. If it were the benign and stable realm that he deludes himself into believing it is, he would not need to protect himself from fellow men, the environment, and his own evanescence. Celebrate his life as he may and, at times, do it inebriated in bacchanal vigor, it does not reduce his fears that every step he takes he can be crushed under speed and weight, shot by a gun of one who has gone mad under the stress of relationships changing precipitously and the competitive strife that makes up society, that at any whim or for practical considerations he can lose his job and livelihood, and that friends and family members have more potential to harm him than a stranger.