Eddy (+ 17.11.2019)

Postscript 10–8–2023

Hello! You’re dead for almost four years by now. This little online grave is one of the first things I posted on Medium. And imagine I did not understand why you made such an impact.

You had a very strong character, both during your life and during your last days; as you took death with far more pride than most humans, with all their drama; more pride than in any Greek drama or whatever, no Wagner can beat it, inspite of how long he would stretch his operas. And I did not understand.

Though the last years I slowly start to understand a little about human cognition; therefore I added this postscript, so that you can see how I am doing and that I am catching up.

Human cognition

So first I was reading about human cognition, and how it consists of ratio/ego and emotion/spirit. And that if you put ratio/ego very low, you can experience funny results.

In the first place that people look pretty ridiculous, with all their self-importance and self-aggrandizement; also hotshots as Plato, Nietzsche or Kant become little schoolboys who make silly mistakes.

In the second mistake that nature becomes smart, nature looks smarter, as you did when you laid down your will to live; or what we will soon again in the forests, when the trees will drop their leaves at the first commando of Autumn: quick, smooth, without protest.

What to do with it??

Pfew, it took too much time to realize this. You might have realized these kind of things immediately and I have to slowly “mediate it” with my thoughts, “proceed it”, “digest it”.

Now I know a little more about it. But I am not even ready because I have to see what to do with it. In my last text on Medium, about “miracles”, I tried the position that nature perhaps does not only look smart, but can also act smart; that if you lower your ratio/ego, if you have this state of “mindlessness”, “not minding”, nature can change her character from passive/material/stupid to active/intentional/spiritual.

I needed this to explain some more things in my life. This could perhaps be the only explanation, of some unusual events, where you would suspect things to happen at random, by coincidence, but were remarkably to the point, as if following a plan.

If I did not realize what you showed me, namely that nature can be smart, I would have never come up with this hypothesis, because it is so strange, so counter-intuitive to our thoughs.

It is somewhat known, this idea, it seems. In the Bible this is conjured up in the vision of God as “creator”. And in the New Testament it is already somewhat more refined: Jesus is more closely connected with reality than the somewhat blunt idea of “creation”; compare John 1: Jesus is “its origin”, “the true light”, “dwelt among us”. You could also compare the daoist term “pu”, which is on Wikipedia described with words as: “unworked wood”, “original state”, “inherent quality”; this seems the same. But Jesus’ relation with reality is still complex, the Gospels are a difficult book, both linguistically and from moral perspective: persecution, torture, execution. As a result, the biblical teachings, though with an excellent start, could become difficult, and perhaps even counterproductive. Therefore I would like to make it more simple: nature is usually passive, physical, but can also become active/intentional/smart which is my 2023 down to earth version of “spirituality”, “the divine”.

I have to get used to this, and see what comes out of it, what to do with it. You can perhaps use it to add value to life. The usually sense is that I have to attribute value to life; either it has value attached to it, according to a certain line of thought, certain dogmas, or you should attach meaning to it yourself personally, more or less “ad hoc”. But all of this is problematic; it is still “indirect”; but with this new vision, you could also allow nature to determine value; eventually perhaps even “raison d’etre”; as nature can show inner truths and outer beauty, that is directly linked to reality.It might come with a surprise, what nature might have in store. At first it might look strange. For example that this can be something small and relatively insignificant. Your ratio/ego might easily think that something is too small, especially if it were just a sweet, silly passion, though we might be well aware how such as thing can be so pleasing and fulfilling; when it is truly passion, you’d need nothing more than that, not even afterlife.

You might think that small pleasures do only mean something on microscale, nothing on macroscale: that when your life is over, the world would still continu, with other people, leaving you alone. That might be a “sting”, that might still be tricky. Though did you ever think what are the costs of nature, to please you with these small things? Imagine: when the world originated, it might have just originated out of chance, out of pure chance, not intentionally, not because it was planned. And imagine, that this is already somewhat “evil”, such a “Big Bang” as a big crash, but as you can observe, it does also literally include evil, nature is full of evil, which means that life is essentially bad and should not remain forever! It was apparently unavoidable, but still never meant to be, how could you claim that it should remain; just for the sake of your own interests? And even if you would consider it, before you do: it seems also impossible. Imagine that it is not natural for nature to act intentionally; it is something out of the ordinary. I guess that this is the result of coming into existence all sort of new things; the earth with its flora, animals, human life. And though most humans are pretty busy with their own affairs, just what nature would like, at some moment some humans might hardly have a ratio/ego of themselves, which would create a provocation to nature: what is this?? It would create a vaccuum, these people, as they lack vision, or raison d’etre, something that nature might not want to see, and would make her react on them. And this might cost her dearly, this costs her so much energy, to transform from passive into active, that this would mean that she will also not survive. It seems that nature has a lot of energy, but this is just enough energy to sustain herself, so that anything attributed to active intervention with someone’s situation, would cost her dearly and cause nature to go down again, it can trigger a “deflation process”; eventually there will perhaps just remain nothingness, total silence, so that there is also nothing to worry about in this respect; as you, of course, would already know.