Forward!

People from the (rapidly disintegrating) “mainstream” societies of Europe and the United States find a strange pleasure in believing themselves to be “normal” compared to criminals, political radicals, and other social outsiders. They see this “normality” as an indicator of mental health and moral decency and treat the “others” with a mixture of pity and disgust. However, if we look to history for guidance, we see that the conditions and patterns of human life have changed so much in the last two centuries that it is impossible to speak of any human way of life as “normal” or the way of life to which we have become accustomed over generations. Of all the lifestyles a young woman raised in the West can choose from today, none comes close to those for which her ancestors were prepared over centuries of evolution.

It is more likely that the “normality” that these people place so much value on is just the feeling of normality, which in turn comes from conforming to a standard. Being surrounded by others who act in the same way, who are conditioned to the same routine and the same expectations, is reassuring because it reinforces the idea that one is following the right path: if many people make the same decisions and live in accordance with the same customs, those decisions and customs must be the right ones.

The mere fact that a number of people act and live in a certain way does not make it more likely that this way of life is the one that brings them the greatest joy. Furthermore, the ways of life associated with the American and European “mainstream” (if such a thing really exists) were not consciously selected as the best by those who follow them, but rather emerged as a result of technological and cultural upheavals. Once the people of Europe, the United States, and the world realize that nothing is necessarily "normal" in their "normal lives," they can begin to ask themselves the first and most important question of the new century: Do ways of thinking, acting, and living exist that are more satisfying and exciting than the ways in which we think, act, and live today?

If the accumulated knowledge of Western civilization can offer us anything of value at this point, it is the realization of how much is possible when human life comes into being. Our otherwise foolish scholars of history, sociology, and anthropology can at least show us this one thing: that people lived in thousands of different societies with tens of thousands of different values, with tens of thousands of different relationships to themselves and their environment, and with tens of thousands of different conceptions of self. A little traveling can show you exactly this, at least if Coca-Cola wasn't faster.

That's why I can't help but scoff when someone invokes "human nature" to apologize for their pathetic submission to the fate that awaits us. Don't you understand that we share common ancestry with the sea urchin? If various environmental conditions have been able to so distance some of our relatives from us, how easy must there be changes in ourselves and in our immediate relationships! If lack exists in our lives (and it does exist in a very, very painful way; most will agree), then we need all of it - everything unnecessarily tragic or pointless in life, every corner of joy that we have not yet fully explored - to reshape our environment accordingly. It is said: “If you want to change the world, start with yourself.” We have learned that the opposite is true.

And there is another valuable discovery that our species has made, albeit the hard way: we are capable of completely changing our environmental conditions. The place where you are lying, sitting or standing reading this may have been completely different a hundred years ago, not to mention two thousand years ago; and almost all of these changes were made by humans. We have revolutionized our entire world in the last few centuries and changed life for almost all animal and plant species - most of all for ourselves. What we are left with is to experiment with intentionally making (or not making) changes based on our own needs and desires, rather than leaving them to inhuman forces like competition, superstition, or routine.

Once we have internalized this, we can choose a new path - individually and collectively. We will no longer be buffeted by influences beyond our control; instead, by creating new environments, we will explore ourselves and learn what we can be. This path will take us beyond the world as we know it - far beyond the furthest horizons we can see from here. We will become artists - major artists - and desire will be our medium. We will create and remake ourselves at will – becoming our self, our masterpiece.

To achieve this, we will have to learn to live and work together successfully: to recognize how interconnected our existences are and to shape them accordingly. Until this becomes possible, each of us will not only be blinded to the enormous potential of our companions, but also our own; until we all together create the world in which everyone has to live and by which everyone is influenced.

The other thing we lack is awareness of our own desires. Desire is a slippery thing, like an amoeba, difficult to grasp: and we are on our own. If we explore and change our desires on the way to a different future, we must also explore and change the current forms of love and lust. Experience and willingness to take risks alone will not be enough. The creators of the new world must be both more selfless and more greedy than anything before: more selfless towards each other and more greedy for life!

I can already read the question on your lips: Isn't that utopian?

Of course it is. Do you know what everyone is afraid of the most? Before all the dreams we have, all the crazy ideas and hopes, all the impossible romantic longings and utopian visions can come true. Before this world can fulfill our wishes. People spend their lives doing everything in their power to stave off this possibility: beating themselves up because of their insecurities, sabotaging their own efforts, undermining romantic relationships, and complaining about sour grapes without tasting them... because no burden could be heavier than that of the possibility that everything we want is possible. If this is true, then there really is something at stake in this life: things that can truly be won or lost. Nothing is more painful than failing when success is within the realm of possibility; That's why we do everything we can to avoid being the first to try it, so we avoid trying it at all.

In the event that there is even the slightest possibility of fulfilling our deepest desires, the only logical consequence is to go all in on this hunt and risk this pain. Hopelessness and nihilism seem safer: we send our despair into the cosmos to apologize for not daring to try. So we are left: clinging to our resignation, as safe as a corpse in a coffin... and yet this terrible possibility remains. In our hopeless flight from the real tragedy of the world, we build our own false and at the same time unnecessary tragedy.

Perhaps this world will never meet all of our needs - people will die before they are ready, perfect relationships will end in ruins and adventures in disaster, and beautiful moments will be forgotten. But what breaks my heart is the way we flee from the inevitable truth into the arms of more terrible things. It may be true that every person is lost in a universe if it is fundamentally different from them - but it cannot be true that people starve while others destroy food or leave fertile land uncultivated. It cannot be true that men and women throw away their lives by working just to make ends meet and at the same time satisfy the dull greed of a few rich men. It shouldn't be that we don't dare to talk about our dreams, that we don't share with each other, that we don't use our talents and opportunities to make life easier. This is the unnecessary tragedy, a stupid tragedy, pathetic and senseless. It's not even utopian to demand that we put an end to such a farce.

If we could make ourselves believe in, even feel, the possibility that we are invincible and that we can accomplish anything we want from the world, then ending these absurdities would no longer seem unattainable. What I ask of you is not to believe in the impossible, but to have the courage to face this possibility that puts our lives in our own hands and to act accordingly: not to be content with every misery that fate and humanity have brought upon us, but to fight back and see what misery can be shaken off. Nothing would be more tragic and ridiculous than to spend an entire life within reach of heaven without ever reaching out to reach it.

Published in German in Message in a Bottle

Space/Time Control, Space Travel, and Space Exploration