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Somehow, My Mission
| Friday, November 9, 2007 11:48AM | | | | Somehow, My Mission | Posted By: Nancy Bogen
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| Tags: failed writer, happy human | As bacteria are to viruses, so we humans are to what we term "the universe." We are and will forever be no more able to see "the whole picture" than a virus the bacterial world or for that matter a bacterium the viral world. For all we know, there are universes in the components of the most minutet items of matter–infinitely smaller than Blake’s "grain of sand." And while our telescopes and the like are able to perceive the limits of our greater universe, very likely there is a larger scheme of things and a larger yet and so on, which we may end up hypothesizing about but never be able to perceive directly. Yes, we humans, who are infinitely smaller than the tiniest of viruses in the greater scheme of things, are likely to go on viewing everything through the minuscule prisms of our senses and thus miss the whole "show," much as bacteria and viruses miss the whole earthly show as well as one another. If there is a creator and/or a maintainer deity, it is far removed from us earthly humans and clearly has no interest in us per se; indeed, because we are so minuscule, it may not even be aware of our existence! In the end, it appears that we humans are bound to this planet and its environs, like all of the other creatures that are native to it--and we are alone. Such tragedy as there is, if such it can be called, is that only we humans are capable of being aware of all of this; truly we are aliens.
So there it is: I’m an earthling agnostic. However, by no means do I disbelieve in human law, biased though it is and always will be–in every society–toward the rich and powerful, and based though it is on the pronouncements of an inane deity concocted by the same individuals as a further deterrent to their conception of wrong-doing and a baby-like "pacifier." I am acutely aware that The Law is all that we have to keep us humans from doing each other injury and destroying one another.
When all is said and done, I find myself loving life, most especially my brother and sister humans as well as my cousins, the other animals that suckle their young and leafy vegetation, whose DNA is so close to ours–even if they don’t love me back–though I do draw the line at those who would seek to harm me or insensitively disregard my well-being and wishes. And because I am human and can feel into things as, alas, many of my fellow humans cannot, I try and help where I can toward making the lives of some individuals I encounter along the way more meaningful and productive in terms of their individual goals, doing so without any hope of reward or recognition.
I, now 77, will leave this life with only one regret: that no one, including the late John Gardner, was able to wave a magic wand over my novels, especially Klytaimnestra Who Stayed at Home, which he called a "nearly perfect work of art," and Bagatelle-Guinevere, which has so much to say about our lives as humans. That alone is a bitter pill.
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1 Comment | Add a Comment |
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| 2-15-09 9:21AM: aka Ann said...
Dear Ms. Bogen:
You put it so well! What can I say. Thank you so much for this post.
Sincerely,
anngreiss@aol.com/
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