There will never be peace on earth.
Never.
Ever.
...Not in a million years.
...Not in a million years.
The only time we will get peace on earth is in the distant future - many millions of years hence, when the sun has grown fat and mushroomed into an obese red giant, and swallowed the earth whole. This last gasp of breath - this final death rattle of the earth, will usher forth a sort of peace for the wretched mass of miserable-striving humanity. But it will be a peace of non-existence - that state of care-free nonchalant sleep stamped on the face of sleepers. But for all intents and practical purposes my statement still stands:
...there will never be peace on earth. As long as there is an earth there will never be peace on earth.
I know. I know. It's a rather pessimistic and sobering assessment ain't it? This is supposed to be the merry season of cheer and Christmas and mince pies!
Perhaps (you're thinking) Wasim is just having a bad day and his thoughts have taken up a darker hue as a result of some gloom that has overcast his mind. Or perhaps, Wasim didn't get any Christmas presents and wishes ill, sulphur and brimstone on the whole world! Yes, tomorrow morning Wasim will wake up with a more cheerful head atop his neck! - that is what you are thinking right?
Wrong! No, I am not having a bad day. In fact my day has been rather good. I have no complaints to make today (and who would I complain to anyway?). It has all gone rather well. I didn't wake up with a nasty headache. I got a good nights sleep. I bought a new toy which I am giddy with excitement with and on the verge of reviewing (watch out for the review!)
Yet, despite the above, I know deep down, that there will never ever be peace on earth.
I do wish - I really do - that a day would arrive when people would once and for all set aside their differences, embrace one another, see each other in each others eyes - and live happily ever after...but alas this is a pipe dream. We will never get peace on earth because the human condition will not allow it. Our inheritance will not allow it. An inheritance we have accumulated; that has been steadily hoisted upon our shoulders, over many years - and in everything we do, every breath we take, every love we embrace, every child we create, every satisfaction and pleasure we satiate, we will never get peace whilst we live and there is breath in our lungs.
You see life is not about peace. Peace is not its 'purpose' or raison d'etre. We don't exist because of peace. We exist in spite of it. We exist because of struggle. The struggles of the past and the struggles of the future to come. Life is struggle incarnate, life is want, life is craving, life is coveting - these are the nasty bedfellows; the demons sitting broodingly on our shoulders, weighing us down - our shoulders hunched, our mouths agape, our eyes distrustful, our hearts shrivelled like dried apples, our earthly hopes dashed, our lives (seemingly) without purpose.
We live on a world that spins on endlessly in a cold dark vacuum of nothingness. Have you seen Space? Do you have any idea what Space is like? I do. Mulled endlessly I have over it. I know Space intimately. For it dwells up there and has made a home inside my breast. It courses through my veins. We are alone - utterly, maddeningly, heart-breakingly alone in the vast ocean of stars. There are moments when I feel this with such force - with such brutal honesty - that it is like an icy grip on my heart. A feeling of utter desolate bareness. Like a once fertile landscape blighted by some natural calamity.
Yet...there is hope. A little hope. A little slender green shoot of hope that takes root and grows forth from the black desolate earth. A green shoot that crashes through the soil and takes aim for the skies!! A green shoot that knows all too well that all is utterly vain, yet it still strives and thrives. A green shoot that sees itself as the engine of innovation, as the answer to the indifference of the universe, as a big 'Fuck you!' to the whole of Creation. Yes, a big wet slap in the face of Time. Against a backdrop of a forest of black burnt-out trees this green shoot rejoices! Ah yes how it rejoices! Rejoices at the miracle of its own existence! How it could be, how it could possibly happen, that this green shoot could despite the odds - deign to exist!
Hey you little green shoot - how dare you defy - entropy!
Do I have a message for 2011 and beyond?
I do:
Go forth and exist. And continue your defiance! We are all; each and every one of us, green shoots, in a spinning sea of emptiness.
V.
P.S: and (for what they're worth) my resolution(s) for 2011 are: Write more, take more photographs, read less, look out of the window more and go on a very long wander somewhere...far out.
