One Hundred and Eighty Six

Everything is food, the Hindus say.  Life feeds on life.  For some to live, others must die, and only fools like me imagine we can live together peacefully in this world.

Every meeting between two animals leads to a struggle, if one or both is hungry; and every animal is hungry at some time.  The winner usually kills and eats the loser, then moves on.  But some of us have learned to keep some of them alive for our later use.  The domestication of our prey is one of the first steps in our creation of what we used to call civilization. 

We humans are more aware than most animals of the suffering of others, and it makes us uncomfortable; so we pretend we and our prey are different.  They do not feel as we do, we tell ourselves; they do not suffer as we do.  

Sometimes we pretend masters are more self-disciplined than their slaves, better able to endure pain; and sometimes we pretend they’re more sensitive, while slaves are dull and stupid.  But in what way do predators and their prey really differ?  Each of us is weak at some time, in some way, and strong in others.  When and how we differ matters less than that we both assume our differences are differences in kind, not just in degree; because we don’t want to eat our own kind, nor be eaten by them.

Being human means we don’t feed on our own kind, as some animals do; at least not directly.  We feed on their labor rather than their flesh.  With us the battle does not decide who will eat and who will be eaten, because we keep our prey alive for later use.  The battle decides who will rule and who will be ruled; and in perpetuity, because we pretend peace between us is the norm. 

Once the battle’s over, winners and losers accept their new roles as masters and slaves because both want to believe peace is the norm.  But just as with all animals in this world, the battle’s never really over.  The peace between us is only a truce that lasts until hunger returns and drives us to fight again.  Wise masters know this, so they feed their slaves just enough to keep them from starving, but not enough so that if and when they rebel, the slaves will be strong enough to overthrow their masters.

Wise masters also know that keeping their slaves fed, but not too well fed, is only a temporary solution.  Slaves whose hunger for food has been satisfied become aware that other appetites remain unsatisfied, and can never be satisfied in this world. 

In this world in which life feeds on life, suffering is inevitable.  I know the food in this world can never satisfy my hunger.

In one of those recurring dreams I used to have when I still remembered my dreams, I'm led into a banquet hall and shown a table spread with a lavish feast. The main course appears to be some form of kibbee, or spiced raw meat; but on closer inspection, I see it’s shit.  What does this mean? 

To someone born amid the ruins of Christian civilization, this is probably the Eucharist, that cannibal feast whose centerpiece is the corpse of Christ.  We postChristians enter the church as we do a memory or a dream, and are there invited to eat of his body and drink of his blood; but then we wake.  It’s also this world we enter, which once seemed to lie spread out before us like a land of dreams, so beautiful and new.  And last, but far from least, it’s that little world of clay that I created and spread out on my bedside table when I was a child. 

In the Christians’ dream, Satan lifted Christ to the highest mountain peak, showed him the world spread out below them, and offered it to him if he’d bow down and worship him.  But Christ refused.  Christians used to imagine he was tempted, but stayed loyal to his Father; but perhaps he refused because he was not tempted.  Perhaps Christ was as disgusted as I now am by what he saw.

I was more compassionate, more Christlike, when I was ten and made that little world of clay beside my bed.