We are the Theodicy

 

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Suffering is the consequence of motion. What do you think happens when countless bodies move in every direction in an infinite space? Collisions occur where larger bodies consume, destroy, and come to control other bodies until the end of time. The pain of every world is a result of having more than one body in it. Large bodies are created that cannot be ignored. They do not shatter easily and because of this, they desire to be nothing else but what they are. Because of this, they influence and reduce to rubble everything in between them and the place they wish to be. The destruction is meaningful for we are not lifeless bodies. The fractures we sustain and inflict, birth an undying interest for the body. It is not so much that we are concerned for our life but more that we aroused by what can be done with it. When we strike at the perfect angle, sparks are born and with every collision we come closer to basking in a fire.  Motion becomes dance, strategy matures into choreography; our arousal ripens into love and from that point on, not even an inferno cannot deter or remodel our interest. There is no greater or lesser in a world consumed by the fire but if you wish to play with fire, something will get swept in the flames and burn. From one perspective there is the fire and what is caught in the flames but from another, what is scorched and reduced to ash is one with the fire. If we see ourselves as we see our cells then perhaps we may see all within the eternal mechanics of moving bodies.

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A process is a collection of processes. A body is a collection of processes we discern, name, and come to categorize independently of other processes. Throughout history attempts to separate ourselves from processes have been made through concepts which delineate a border between the world and ourselves. Such borders were once the product of ignorance and now subsist on fear but beings can only be scared for so long. Life swallows what lingers and thus eliminates fear by eliminating the fearful. The worlds within and beyond ourselves threaten the legitimacy of the persons we believe ourselves to be, but there is no need to worry for when the masks come off, the crown remains; a faceless king is still a king. The ecosystems in the human organism constitute worlds so rich, complex, and vast that they must be elevated to the status of universes in our thoughts of them. In doing so, our thoughts about ourselves must be raised in an equal fashion. The cells become universes and we become the cells. Beneath a process lies a process; above process, a process lies. In between, there is I and everything else that ever lived or wished to die.

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Like every other organism, the human body requires its fair share of cellular sacrifice to exist, exhibit change, and persist. All cells do not die from old age. Random mutations, inequality in both circumstance and fitness, assure that many perish in the most disheartening of ways. Yet we do not frown upon nor cry over the lives of cells or the death in their world. Destruction, assimilation, and repurposing are quintessential features of an evolving process; from which senseless death is an inescapable consequence. Strategies are born; symbiosis, assimilation, destruction, cooperation, and reproduction are employed, but we only call it war when people are involved. This is how all things came to be and why they strive to grow. Imagine the world of the cells but change one aspect. Give them an inner life, feelings, concepts, and shared language. It will not be long before they too ask about the nature of suffering and create the concept of evil. Our seemingly unique sensibilities do not grant us special privileges. Bodies cannot avoid collisions, processes cannot forego change, and catalysis cannot deter the onset of obsolesce. There is a system of exchange embedded in the most basic operations; an axiomatic order that allows one thing to be differentiated from another. Without the need for something to have been in order for something to be here now, there could not be more than one thing. Only an independent, complete, timeless, and perfect substance without parts would remain.  No organism is self-sufficient for no organism is composed of only one organism. An organism is a plurality of organisms each with their own needs, directives, and capacities. If one part were invincible or all parts were equal, no parts would exist. In order to create and sustain an organism some needs must be met, others denied, some directives followed, others ignored, some capacities cultivated, others suppressed. Our bodies would not work let alone exist if all cells were equal in numbers, capable of equally opposing one another, and possessed equal lifespans. It is because they are dependent, incomplete, temporal, imperfect, and unequal that they require the life of another to be, and become something greater; something new. Our lives are integrated within all bodies in ways we do not normally perceive or understand. This level integration manifests the system of exchange: none shall move without disturbance or collision…

 

Want more? part 2 and part 3

 

by Carlos Angarita // Artwork by Jennifer Lauren 

 

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Carlos Angarita

Carlos tackles existence from many different point of views, of which his favorite is that of the philosopher Nietzsche—life as will to power. The link to Carlos' instagram page is in his name at the bottom.