Rug reproached me for asking irrelevant, irreverent and impertinent questions to Bug. How their love for each other had deepened, in not more than ten days! Such passionate dispositions! Anyway, so as I was saying, Rug reproached me, admonished and accused me of being ‘passive-aggressive.’ And perhaps I was (it would be a grievous lie to deny what I had been in my past). Now, his calling me ‘passive-aggressive’ was not irksome in itself; however, what did revolt me was the intention behind his observation/accusation: He wanted to calm me down, forget, forgive so that a harmonious conclusion could be derived. He wanted me to surrender to the changes, surrender to the happening; he wanted me to surrender to his will. He wanted to restore ‘order’, pacify me and deliver us truce and a sacred harmony so that the future would be good, peaceful and in accordance to his order (pun intended).
Perhaps his intention was good, perhaps it was benevolent; perhaps it was even humane but it was terribly misled, naive and insufficient. It was terribly erroneous. He wished to bring about a calm when he himself, perhaps innocently, was in conflict with me. He wished to establish order by going to war! It seems even History has been unable to teach the man the fundamentals: Conflict brings no calm; war brings no peace and/because Order can never be.
It has been a fault with all men, especially those who are either short-sighted or are turning blind (there is no hope for the fully sightless), to suppose and impose the idea that the nature of Nature is order and stability. Man sees order and pattern in things only because he wishes to see them; he constantly projects his own desire for order onto these otherwise indifferent things. It would be more truthful to say that man seeks order and not that he sees it. For without this sense of order (and it is merely a sense as opposed to revelation), there would be no stability for him. His grand structure, laboriously erected, intricately sculpted and ostentatiously embellished would collapse. Man would be quite lost. Man invests faith in Order because he wants to feel safe, sheltered and meaningful. But what man has called ‘Order’ has only been the arbitrariness of his invention, his genius. In essence, if essence can ever be located, Order is an illusion. But then again, one cannot deny man his genius.
And so, one is led to ask the obvious question: What is Nature? And the obvious answer is Conflict. Hence, it is natural for man to be in conflict, or rather he is born into conflict, for Nature allows it, endorses it. Societal rules and regulations, political agreements and pacts, moral and religious commandments are thus quite unnatural. But then again, they too, I realise, adhere to the same principle; they too are in conflict with Nature and thus they too are natural.
Thus, here I would like to tell my dear friend, Rug, that his reproach and accusation were more natural than his intentions. His intentions were pious, commendable but far removed from the truth. They had their origins in his beliefs, the beliefs that make his life worthy in his own eyes. But they are beliefs nonetheless and to a pursuer of truth, beliefs are merely obstacles.
Perhaps his intention was good, perhaps it was benevolent; perhaps it was even humane but it was terribly misled, naive and insufficient. It was terribly erroneous. He wished to bring about a calm when he himself, perhaps innocently, was in conflict with me. He wished to establish order by going to war! It seems even History has been unable to teach the man the fundamentals: Conflict brings no calm; war brings no peace and/because Order can never be.
It has been a fault with all men, especially those who are either short-sighted or are turning blind (there is no hope for the fully sightless), to suppose and impose the idea that the nature of Nature is order and stability. Man sees order and pattern in things only because he wishes to see them; he constantly projects his own desire for order onto these otherwise indifferent things. It would be more truthful to say that man seeks order and not that he sees it. For without this sense of order (and it is merely a sense as opposed to revelation), there would be no stability for him. His grand structure, laboriously erected, intricately sculpted and ostentatiously embellished would collapse. Man would be quite lost. Man invests faith in Order because he wants to feel safe, sheltered and meaningful. But what man has called ‘Order’ has only been the arbitrariness of his invention, his genius. In essence, if essence can ever be located, Order is an illusion. But then again, one cannot deny man his genius.
And so, one is led to ask the obvious question: What is Nature? And the obvious answer is Conflict. Hence, it is natural for man to be in conflict, or rather he is born into conflict, for Nature allows it, endorses it. Societal rules and regulations, political agreements and pacts, moral and religious commandments are thus quite unnatural. But then again, they too, I realise, adhere to the same principle; they too are in conflict with Nature and thus they too are natural.
Thus, here I would like to tell my dear friend, Rug, that his reproach and accusation were more natural than his intentions. His intentions were pious, commendable but far removed from the truth. They had their origins in his beliefs, the beliefs that make his life worthy in his own eyes. But they are beliefs nonetheless and to a pursuer of truth, beliefs are merely obstacles.
