In order to create another human being with only your imagination you must be keenly aware on all of your senses as well as total control of your mind. Only a very powerful individual would be able to pull off a feat of this magnitude. Not even a wizard would have been able to complete this feat of the imagination without the help of a higher force. Could this force be that of the higher being that we call God, or could it be something else that our imagination cannot even begin to comprehend? It could be that this higher being is out of the realm of human thought.
For centuries intellectuals across the globe have searched for the answer to the question “why are we here?”. There have been many theories presented that have tried to explain this question but without knowledge this higher being there will never be a definitive answer to who or what this higher being really is.
This question has also been studied by religious organizations. Each has their own theories which they seem to use as a definitive answer. Each is different in its own way and none will ever be proven. Some of these religious organizations have lead crusades against other religions in order to attempt convert their beliefs. Centuries ago the Catholic Church lead a series of crusades against Europe in order to convert their beliefs to Catholicism. This only resulted in bloodshed and never really achieved its intended outcome.
Even today religions like Islam are waging “holy wars” against the world. They believe that their beliefs are true and they are willing to die in order to prove that fact. This has become a major problem in the world today and it is only going to get worse as people become more and more frustrated that they cannot find an answer to this question.
When this world was first created there was a constant fear of the future. There is no knowledge of what the future holds and that fact has been a major driving force behind the search for meaning in life. People are inherently curious. They do not want to be surprised by an outcome especially if that outcome turns out to be bad for them. In this sense it is only natural that people find out the meaning why we are here. It is difficult to not know why we are here. It is hard because we want to know that our life serves some purpose. If our life is purposeless, then why are we here on his earth?
Could it be that we are just pawns in a stupid game? Could our lives have a higher meaning that we are unable to comprehend with the little we know about the world we live in? It is very possible that we will never fully understand the purpose of our existence even following our death. This is a very troubling aspect of our world and it will continue to be one until the end of time.
Just as in the Circular Ruins people on earth have tried to find the purpose of their existence and get outside the realm of the believable. It is possible to relate the creation of the sorcerer’s son to many of the scientific techniques that doctors and scientists have begun to use in the realm of cloning. Creating a being from another being is something that has since been proven to be possible. This scientific discovery almost makes the higher being that we believe in to seem less powerful. Many religious organizations have called out that this goes against their religion and have thus spoken out against the techniques.
If we are able to create other beings from something else then why can’t there be a higher being that can do his on a much larger scale? This is a question that I believe will never be answered. It will continue to plague generation after generation.
I'm not really sure where you are going with this. I like the questions you posed. I think Borges would be interested to try and answer them. The only thing that this essay lacks is an actual story. You bring up ideas but if this were a Borges story it would have a plot with a beginning, middle, and end. From reading that story you would understand that these were the questions he was trying to answer. If you came up with a story where a character was asking some of the questions you brought up. I think you did a really good job making your point circular. Asking the questions and then not answering them. Still the idea of Borges is to tell a fictional story and from there you get a bigger meaning.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lindsay - you're posing good questions, but questions are not a story, or an essay. A good question is a starting point for a story or an essay. A Borges story, of course, might address a series of questions, rather than one, and it might do it in a cerebral manner - but he would be concerned, for instance, not just with Islam in general, but with a specific Sufi practice in 15th century Iran; not just with Catholicism in general, but with a particular 9th century pope; not just with contemporary science in general, but with a specific problem in insect biology, and how it reflects on human nature.
ReplyDeleteMy examples, obviously, are pretty much completely random. My general point is that you are not writing anything like a Borges story; what you're doing is much closer to writing a general outline, from which many Borges-like stories might be written.
Fiction, even abstract and weird fiction like Borges writes, needs to be about something in particular; what's missing here is the particulars, even though you're asking promising and worthwhile questions.