One Hundred and Forty Seven

Philosophers have always sought to understand the world.   The point, said Marx, is to change it.  But each time we try to change it, the results aren’t what we expected.  That’s probably one of the reasons why we imagined the world is a being like us, alive as we are, with a mind and a will of its own.  But it’s obviously more powerful than we are, so instead of opposing it we tried to tame it as we tame wild animals and make them serve us, as our masters tame us and make us serve them.  We flatter this being, and pretend we love it, and eventually persuade ourselves not only that it’s true, but it loves us in return.

To change the world, we must know the world; and to know the world is to know it's not a being like us, alive as we are; and we don't know it well enough to know what the results will be if we try to change it, any more than we know ourselves well enough to know what we want it to be.

It’s changing all the time, of course; but in accordance with its own laws, not ours. 

It’s alive, of course, but not as we are. It’s a body of which we are the cells. Tat tvam asi. But what does a body know of its cells, and what do cells know of their body?

We are more than we seem, part of something greater than ourselves; but I can no longer take comfort in knowing that because I know we’re destroying the world, and therefore ourselves.