By Richard E. Noble
Let's face it, my friends, we are put into this world and this existence, against our will, or to put it more delicately, without our consent. To say that, as human beings, we had a free choice in this matter is to deny reason and common sense.
The thinking on this is simple. You couldn't have been asked if you wanted “to be” or “not to be” before you existed. You would have “to be,” before anyone could ask if you would like to choose “not to be.” And then once you “are” – the prejudice of your existence makes an objective choice impossible.
I see no way around this fact or argument and neither could Clarence Darrow, Bertrand Russell and a slew of other thinkers before me. Just as your human parents didn't ask you if you wanted to be born (Your mother and father making that choice for you) neither did your Creator. It was only reasonable for you, as a child, to presume that your parents had a reason for making that decision. But strangely enough, as most of us children grow older, we find that, in reality, our parents had no reason for bringing us into this world, other than the simple fact that they were in a state of frenzy and confusion at that particular time.
The most common reason for one's human existence (to be distinguished from our cosmic existence) for a good number of us was pure and simple accident.
Today human beings are brought into this world for a multitude of reasons but, on the international scale, human beings in heat is still probably number one. But there are other reasons and they are multiple and numerous:
Security – your parents may have brought you here in order to have someone to fight for their cause; to be a part of their army, church, society, tribe, family, and/or group; to help milk the cows, goats, or camels; to wash the dishes, sweep the floors, plow the fields, paint the barn, or take care of poor me when I'm too old to take care of myself.
Welfare Fraud – you could have been the product of a monetary transaction. In other words, you were brought here, basically, because your birth meant bucks to somebody, a new apartment, or a check from the government or a secure income for life for somebody.
Super Star – Your Mom and Dad might have brought you here in the hopes that one day you may have grown up to be another Magic Johnson, or a Big Bubba linebacker with a million dollar a year contract. Or just an anybody who might one day become rich, wealthy, or famous, and , in turn, rescue his Mom and Dad from all of their suffering.
Heir – You could be here to provide an heir to some egotistical rich bitch.
Proof of Adulthood – Then again, you could be the symbol of someone's maturity, "See Mommy, I'm big enough to have a baby, even if I still don't know how to make my own bed, or clean my room.
Ugly – You could be here because your mother and father, or both your parents, were so ugly that they had to provide living proof to the world that another human being would actually make love to them. Their word alone, not being acceptable proof.
Retribution – You could be here because your Mom and Dad were so low on the scale of social acceptability, that without you they would have no one whom they could legitimately beat, use, abuse, or brow beat; in general, to do to you, what they feel the world has been doing to them for all of their lives.
Family Heritage – You could be here as a projection of another’s ego – the intellectual notion of passing on one's superior genes to some fortunate progeny. Unfortunately this, in reality, only succeeds in creating another little ugly thing with the parents own prized set of personal defects.
Immortality – Then, of course, there is this immortality thing. Your Mom or Dad may have thought that by bringing you into existence, that they would be continuing their line or family name and thus projecting themselves one more step towards immortality. My guess is that even though you did not succeed in bringing them immortality you, more than likely (if we are to take probability into account), made their life here on this earth, actually seem like an eternity. So consider yourself a success on this account – even if Mom and Dad don't.
That’s my Boy – Then again, you could be here on behalf of your parents, to accomplish all of those wonderful things that they were either too stupid, too chicken, or too lacking in talent or ability to accomplish themselves. In other words, as existing nobodies, your folks had the hope, even with the knowledge that you would be inheriting all of their inadequate, deformed genes that you might grow up one day to be a somebody. And if you will take a look at all of the great somebody's existing in this world today, and in the past for that matter, you will see that such a ludicrous notion was and is actually possible.
Lonely – Then there are others who may have brought you here simply because they were lonely; or because they wanted to share all of the "wonder and beauty" that they saw around them with a creature of their own creation - one that didn't look somewhat like them, or their diseased, syphilitic great, great grandmother just wouldn't do.
You could have been brought here as a part of a breeding program, like the one initiated by good old Adolf in Nazi Germany or the program of “unnatural” selection that we had right here in the good old U.S. of A. back in our formative years i.e. slavery.
Extra Cash – You could be the product of a closed, private room, a few dirty movies, or magazines, and a cash payment of $29.95 at a local sperm bank just down the street from Harvard or Yale.
Pill Bill – You could be the not necessarily wanted result of a fertility pill gone bonkers.
Spare Parts – You might, or may, one day, actually be a clone.
You might be here as spare parts for somebody's very, very famous uncle.
Drunken Folly – You could be here as the result of one too many Seven and Seven's, or Zombies.
An extra Buck – You might actually be here as the result of a "babies for sale" program in Asia, Africa, or East L.A.
Prostitution – Your mother could have been a child prostitute trying to pay for her father's farm, or drug problem.
Rape – You could be the unwanted child of a rape victim.
Free Labor – You could actually have been bred as a slave to work in a chocolate factory on an island off the coast of Liberia in the twentieth century.
So there you have some of the reasons for your human existence. Your Cosmic, or Spiritual existence if you will, is still another question. I sometimes think that, in actuality, the concept of God was made up by parents as an answer to their children when the kids inevitably asked; "Mom … Dad, who made me? Where did I come from?" The Parents couldn't bring themselves to say, "Well you see kids, your Mother and I were in heat for a number of years and we just couldn't stop screwing. We were at this drive-in movie one night. We bought prophylactics, honest! Your mother was even wearing a diaphragm but – what can I say? Would it do any good to say that I'm sorry?" So instead, they quickly thought up the notion of God in order to cast off their guilt and irresponsibility. "Well Danny, you see, God made you. We don't really understand why He made you because you are without a doubt the biggest pain in the ass that we two have ever experienced, but we know that He must have had a reason. So, son, the next time that you see Him, you ask HIM. Oh and, by the way, while you are at it, ask about us too, will you? Your Mother and I have been asking that same question for quite a while also. But, when you ask God, don't be rude, or pushy, because God gets pissed off easily. He has been known to turn people at a glance into stone, or salt, or a toad. He flooded the whole world once and killed everybody but a guy named Boa or Scoa, or something. And, let me tell you, if he doesn't like you, and you don't bow down and kiss His butt, He may just set you on fire and forget to put you out! But don't you kids be afraid now. It doesn't hurt to ask why. How else are you ever going to learn? So now, run along."
As you can see there are any number of reasons why your parents may have brought you here into this world. BUT, why did God do it? Why did God devise this process? Why did God create the human sexual system? Just like with our earthly parents, the fact that we are here gives rise to the human notion, that if there is a cause to “being”, it must be a “reasonable” cause. Or the Cause-er must have had a reason. But, just as with your Mom and Dad, that reason may not exist, or might have very little resemblance to what anyone has thought it to be, or, there could very well be no reasonable cause at all. Why the ant, the rat, or the roach? Do they need a 'reason'? Or is it you that needs the reason? I personally think that there is a first cause and that First cause is none other than Santa Cause.
When I was young and going to school, the Great Thinkers of humankind were having a heated debate over whether or not there was such a thing as instinctual behavior in human beings.
First they put this definition on instinctual behavior that only a cat could conform to. And then they concluded that since no human has ever walked in circles in a dirt drive, dug a hole, shit in that hole and then buried it, without any directions from a mother or wife, there is obviously no instinctual behavior in Man.
How about War? How about domination? How about falling in love? How about huddling together in groups (societies)? How about killing things? How about sucking on a boob? How about screaming, and kicking and yelling when one does not get what one wants. In babies, we expect it. In young adults we call it a temper tantrum. In mature grownups, we call it politics.
I read about this interesting case study which was conducted by a couple of non-professionals (behavioral scientists, amateur status, of course).
This couple gave birth to a little girl. For reasons known to them alone, they took this child and locked her in a closet up in the attic. They shoved food to her, under the door, and avoided any human contact with the child for thirteen or fifteen years. [Talk about being sent to your room for being bad!] In any case, since the couple didn't leave us an abstract of their experiment, all that we have by way of data, is what the police supplied to the newspapers.
What do you think that this little unwanted child did in this closet, compulsively, day in – day out, for the greater part of her puberty? Give up? Let me give you some choices;
A) say the rosary?
B) watch soap operas?
C) contemplate the universe.
D) masturbate.
To find out if you have chosen the correct answer and win a possible free trip to the Bahamas (or some other place where the people who live there hate your guts because they think that you have too much money, no taste in clothes, are rude, and a poor tip giver; write your name, age, and vital statistics (please include nude photo) to: P.O. Box A B C D – Perverts, Sadomasochists, and Insane Sexual Deviates Anonymous; c/o The International Health Foundation Cleavage, Maryland.
Many years ago, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to his associate and contemporary, Sigmund Freud, and asked – Why war? I've now forgotten what Sigmund's response was, but I do know that Sigmund returned to Albert (via UPS overnight delivery) a one quart baggy filled with human nose pickings, and a photo of his wife, Siggarrette Freud, naked.
In any case, old Albert neglected to ask me, why war? That is probably one of the reasons that he ended up where he did ... Princeton.
Boy, just think, if he would have contacted me first, he could probably have gone to Harvard.
Oh well, and that brings us right back to our original premise and the nature of our cosmic and psychological being. To use Plato's Allegory; Man sees the shadows on the wall of his cave (actually symbolisms for forceps and womb) but then one day pokes his head out and sees the light, to which he responds; "What the hell am I doing here?"
A voice in the heavens responds; "Exactly!"
And then Man says; "What did he mean by that?"
And thus, began Man's search for eternal knowledge.
But, it should be obvious to everyone by the multitude of religious beliefs and the general confusion on this issue, that Man does not know the answer to that question. And if Man, the damn fool that he is, doesn't know why he is here in the first place, how the hell can he ever justify whatever the heck it is that he thinks he's doing? This lack of resolution, brings about mental conflict, which if left unresolved, leads to frustration – which if left unresolved (provided he has nothing to suck on) leaves little Ingert hitting little brother, Nutgard, on the top of the head. AND, if this behavior is left unchecked, WE HAVE WAR!
The truth of this matter is really not so difficult to understand. Man presumes, by his being that God must have had a reason for creating him.
He looks at the nature of the things about him.
He sees how the rat eats the roach, and the cat eats the rat, and the dog kills the cat, and the lion eats the dog, and how a man eats anything that doesn't eat him first. He then starts making assumptions, whether conscious or otherwise:
God must not only be a Prime Mover, he thinks, but a Prime Eater, also. Or a Prime Killer, because if we don't kill one another, all at once or in bunches, He figures out a way to kill us all one by one anyway with some sort of pestilence or disease, or just plain old . . . DEATH.
But, regardless, man's thoughts go on:
If all things in nature parasitically thrive on each others death, and/or flesh and blood, then couldn't it be that God is in fact the infinite Vampire who thrives off human death (i.e., mankind's history of human sacrifice and torture to appease the Gods) human suffering just being the frosting on the cake. And all of this leads man to ask himself; If God has created me so that one day He will have the pleasure of killing me, what the heck is His story, anyway?
Man does not like to face this fact of his own death. It irks him greatly to think that God (his Cosmic Parent) has made this terrible situation on purpose, or even worse yet, without purpose. In response to this frustrating dilemma, we have a multitude of different reactions on the part of man (and some women):
He becomes a psychotic, and makes up a Disney World up in the sky. He calls it heaven, and it is a place (unlike the earth) filled with sugar and spice and everything nice. The streets of heaven are paved with gold, and once you get there everything is peachy-keen, hunky-dory or just plain swell.
Or, he may conclude: if this is the example God sets for me, maybe I should be a good little person and follow his example, and destroy all the things and people about me, just as He does and act in His own image and likeness. Be Godly, as was Adolf Hitler conclusion.
Or maybe seeing death and torture, and pain as the alternatives of his life, he comes to the conclusion that somebody up there really hates me … and maybe justifiably so. Maybe, I am a hateful vicious creature that deserves nothing but pain and suffering. I will therefore abuse and punish myself and some of these other similar ugly creatures about me. And why the hell not? Right boys and girls?
BUT ... Why war? Albert asked Sigmund.
Come on guys! Don't you know?
Do you really have to ask; WHY WAR?
WHY NOT!
When you look at the nature of the human beings around you; when you, as learned men, have read the History of Humankind in all of its blood and gore; you ask, Why War?
My question would be the exact opposite.
Why civilization?
Where and how did the concept that Man was anything more than a crude, self-destructive, ignorant beast ever evolve from? If Albert and Sigmund were alive today, I would write a letter to each of them and ask; Albert ... Sigmund ... WHY SYMPHONY?
I watch the Symphony on the educational television station whenever I can. When it's on, I can't seem to draw myself away from it. I am totally spellbound. I hate the music, but the spectacle of civilization enthralls me.
There we have before us on the screen, one hundred, maybe two hundred well groomed animals.
Just a short time ago, anthropologically speaking, the ancestors of these creatures were disemboweling one another and eating each others hearts.
Humans used to eat the hearts of other humans, not simply because they ran out of M&M's or Moon Pies, but for any number of good intelligent reasons.
One of which was the notion that if they ate the heart of a brave courageous human, they would thusly ingest his fortitude, fearlessness and strength.
BOY, lucky they didn't apply this same theory to sexual prowess, who knows what they would have been eating, huh?
Knowing this, one would think that a smart human of yesteryear, when faced with a situation requiring fortitude and courage (the above respected qualities of heart consumption) would cower down behind a bush or shrub, and say; "Don't hit me, don't hit me, please? I'm nothing but a cowardly snip and if you dirty my knickers, my Mom will kill me."
This, on the surface, would appear to have been a good strategy, but, not so!
This sniveling type of individual was captured. And as an example to similar minded cowards in their own army, cultural group, and/or society, these individuals would be brought before the citizens, on a Sunday afternoon, whereupon, they would be skinned alive, or a sharp instrument would be placed into his lower abdomen and a High Priest would reach into this unfortunate body and pull out his bowels and/or intestines.
The audience could tell that this was a very painful experience for the sorry Warrior. They were able to discern this from the pitch of his screams, and the intensity of his cries and the way his eyeballs just, kind of bugged out of his skull.
Once This High Priest had all of the bowels and intestines pulled out of the man through the small slit in his lower abdomen, he usually laid them on the man's stomach or chest, and then went over to the next altar and plunged a dagger into a heart of a virgin.
And this is the way the ancestors of the bassoon and oboe players used to spend their Sunday afternoons. And, now, here we have their descendants today, two hundred or so well groomed monkeys (or dolphins), basically, sitting in gowns or tuxedos, with all offensive holes or protuberances and body parts covered, strumming, drumming, or gumming a complicated series of sounds and noises … IN HARMONY!
And more amazing than even that, they have all gotten together, beforehand and agreed to play the SAME SONG! AND, in basically the same manner as played hundreds of times before, by other monkeys from other tribes, who live in parts of the world thousands of miles from one another AND DON'T EVEN SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE!
How is this possible?
Why war?
No way man. Why Symphony? HOW Symphony?
On top of all of this, they play this series of sounds and noises that no teenager with pink hair, a ring in his nose, and a six dollar piece of artificial puke in his pocket, would ever spend two cents of his parents’ hard earned money to buy. And this music form lives on.
Is this not truly amazing?
To further complicate this situation, we have a second oboe player who hates the guts of the first oboe player because he knows in his heart that he could gum the sounds allocated to the first oboe player with considerably more style and grace.
We have a female cellist who has her seat in the Symphony solely because she has been playing exciting sounds on the conductor's favorite nephew.
We have four rather strange guys in the brass section who are having a problem with their concentration because they can't stop thinking about the enema party that they are all hoping to attend after the concert is over.
There is also a problem with the string section, who sit directly behind the cellist (who, as we remember, is making passionate love to the conductor's nephew) because she is wearing a dress that is cut down in the back to the creak of her ass.
And in the midst of all of this we have Mozart, Strauss, Shostakovich, Bach, and Beethoven.
We have SYMPHONY! UNBELIEVABLE! Is it not?
But yet, Albert asks Sigmund. Why war?
Albert, my good friend, you spent too much time riding your imaginary motorcycle through the universe at the speed of light. You missed the BIG questions, man!
The question is not why war? That's obvious.
The bigger questions are: Why love? Why beauty? Why kindness? And the most psychological and philosophical of all … why symphony?
