"God, where have we got to?!" In connection with the pandemic, the web argues about the meaning of life

The remarkable poet and publicist Alexey Tsvetkov published on his blog a post with reflections, to which sooner or later any thinking person comes - about the meaning of life:

“One of the lessons of covid (and the internet and everything else) is how amazingly stupid people are in general, and how sad it is to be one of them.

Years ago, I was depressed by the pessimism of the later works of Stanislav Lem, who throughout my life was an example of a relatively bright mind for me. Even if we discard his early opportunistic things, it is easy to see that for him a long life was a consistent chain of loss of illusions, and in the end he lost almost everyone. He took off his bets one after another on the species to which he belonged. Then I attributed it to the aging process and personal loss - after all, it cannot be that everything was so bad.

Now I myself am closer to the end of this distance and I see that there is nothing to blame. In principle, we initially laid down on biological losses. Yes, most of us get grumpier and stupider as we get older. But those who started out with a mind reserve above average will be very disappointed, understanding that there is simply nothing to do with this reserve. We got to the wrong place.

Still, it's great happiness to be a child, although for some of us, unlike most, this does not last long. The child relies on the wit of adults, they will fix everything, and it will be better than before, they take him to the zoo, and he forgets about the trouble. But when he grows up, he sees, without embellishment, who he counted on, and the zoo no longer saves. Poor child - you are a child yourself, and you are an adult too.

Covid is a dress rehearsal, but not yet premiered. We live in anticipation of more energetic microbes, which will surely come and clear the area we polluted..."

This publication, as expected, generated a lot of responses. Still - who is not close to this topic:

- About twenty years ago, I had a similar phase transition in relation to science. When it suddenly became clear that there are no omniscient sages capable of understanding everything and explaining everything, heroes-not-for-us-a couple who reveal the Main Secrets of the Universe, but what we ourselves will do (including myself), then will. And I would not say that this feeling is _only_ unpleasant and _only_ disappointing.

- Civilizations are a fragile thing, but our biological species, like most species in general, is extremely tenacious. Over the hundreds of thousands of years of its existence, he has experienced the most diverse and formidable cataclysms. There is no reason to be pessimistic about his (our) prospects. And what about the site was fucked up ... I don't know how it might come to mind to use such an image when applied to the activities of the undoubtedly highest, most creative, inventive - with an infinite margin - species on the planet.

- About 50 years ago I read almost in the magazine "Knowledge-Sila" about an interesting experiment: the rats were given ideal living conditions. They immediately began to get prettier, get fat, multiply exponentially, until .... - that's right, they quickly died out from some kind of virus. The same thing happened with the rabbits of Father Fyodor ... At the same time, to the question of the covid: is it not strange that in Israel the dubious company of anti-Axes is made up mainly of illiterate ultra-religious Jews, illiterate Bedouins and highly educated Russian Jews? ...You will involuntarily become sad...

The famous artist Tatyana Ponomareva published her detailed and, which is a huge rarity, an optimistic post on this topic:

“I will speak from the position of a person who recognizes the existence of the Creator and is inclined to philosophical reasoning.

The value of an individual life

In the Abrahamic religions, the Earth has always been considered a vale of sadness. In fact, our life is a quest, it does not matter whether it is short or long and how many difficulties and disappointments one will have to endure on the way to the cherished goal.

It is obvious that disappointment in humanity befalls any thinking individual at some point. This is one of the stages of our spiritual growth. After him, a new worldview can be born. Or it may not be born.

Yes, one of the goals of this quest is to bring a thinking person to the understanding that the Earth is not a place for real life, but a place for testing and cultivating the spirit. That is, in essence, life is a game, and if you master its rules, you get the opportunity to move to the next spiritual level. And so on ad infinitum. On the path of spiritual growth, only spiritual knowledge is preserved. The body becomes decrepit, but the spirit never. In other words, the goal of the quest is to achieve unattainable spiritual perfection ("level - God" - unattainable a priori).

If we agree with this statement, we must admit that the length of our life on Earth does not matter from the point of view of the Creator. Only the spiritual outcome of life is important. As soon as a person achieves the desired result, he no longer needs to go through a life quest. The task is completed, and the person leaves the earthly world.

If a person, having reached the spiritual peak, continues to be present on Earth, then the Creator has assigned some important mission to him. And it must be done.

Sometimes a person initially comes to our world with a specific mission.

In any case, a person's life does not end until the moment when the peak point of spiritual growth for a particular individual is reached or an individual mission is completed.

In other words, only spiritual growth and the fulfillment of the mission entrusted to him are important for the Creator.

At the same time, in relation to prophets and patriarchs, the Bible uses the wording: "He died full of life and was added to his people". There are two important points in it from the point of view of a particular person.

Life must be satiated

This statement is true not only for the biblical prophets, it is true for each of us. Our body and our soul must be filled with life to the brim, like an individual vessel.

One vessel fills up very quickly, this happens when the density of events and actions in a person's life is incredibly high. And each of us knows examples of such bright and short lives.

Another vessel - will be filled with events and actions slowly. But in both cases we are dealing with one indivisible non-material unit, which is used to call human life.

In fact, a person's earthly path can be described as the product of the space enveloped by his life, its duration (remember that measurable time exists only in human space) and individual vitality (vital power or vital energy).

An important observation: the time of a human life does not flow evenly. Even the ancient Greeks knew about this, who shared Chronos and Kairos.

Chronos flows slowly, it is a linear function - the usual straight line on the life graph.

Kairos is a short powerful burst, an extrasystole of a nonlinear function of our life on the monitor of an outside observer, a moment lasting more than a century, necessary to make a fateful decision with which physical existence usually ends. The vessel is full to the brim. Man is absolutely saturated with earthly life. There is no space for new events and actions, there is no time either, vitality has been exhausted, and humanity is inscribing the name of a new hero in its earthly history.

Attach to your people

Each of us is individual, and this individuality, in my opinion, is now given excessive importance.

It may seem strange, but it is the people with the greatest vitality, this attractive life force, who have learned the true taste of life and know its value, who sacrifice it more easily for the common good than others. This is why we value heroes so much. They are the quintessence of our ideas about a person's mission, dreams of a feat - subconsciously each of us dreams of it - and unconditional love.

Individual life does not exist outside of society. Outside of society, outside of the people, none of us can take place as a person and manifest in social conditions inherent in a human being - mother, father, daughter, son, sister, brother, etc., as well as acquire a professional and social status, unless only he is the messiah, the messenger of the Most High, an avatar (in Hindu terminology) who receives knowledge not from society, but directly from the Creator. But a man of a messianic nature, receiving a human body, as a result applies to his people, which he led along the path of spiritual development.

Our souls are trapped in physical bodies for only a short time. Let's not forget this. And the people about whom the Bible speaks is not a collection of the dead buried in all earthly cemeteries or outside their territory.

According to the Bible, a people is an aggregate of souls, a single soul of a people (a community of individuals). This concept is most clearly expressed in Judaism. But other religions say the same thing, only in different words. Therefore, the only way to achieve harmony in the soul is to admit that you are a creation, that no matter how strong your individuality is, you, being only a particle of the people's soul, cannot live outside society and are completely subordinate to the Creator, who created both past and present, and future generations that exist in his dimension at the same time. This is the only way to feel the vitality, get enough of life and venerate your people..."