Darwinism is real, people.
We are born to struggle. We live our lives in a state of conflict and are constantly bombarded by a storm, a deluge of stimuli forcing us to adapt.
We all know the famous fight of flight reflex, right!?
This is it.
We either adapt or we succumb like many genera before us.
In other words,
If some among them are innocent, it is expedient that they should be assayed like gold in the furnace and purged by proper judicial examination.
– Royal letter opening the enquiry into the Templar Knights
Like the Templars of France 717 years ago, we must always fight for our lives. Unlike them who were persecuted and burned at the stake, some of us will actually make it.
Case in point
Oswald Spengler was a great German thinker of the early 20th century. He wrote his magnum opus, The Decline of the West, at the height of World War 1. In it, he placed the evident decline of the West in the greater historical context of the cyclical nature of the rise, plateau, and fall of civilizations.
What is most fascinating about his view is his organic interpretation of “Cultures [as] organisms, and world-history [as] their collective biography.” Riveting stuff, I tell you. The man could really distill the complexities of the Annals of History down into a drinkable potion.
Spengler saw a clear parallel between the evolution of Cultures and the different ages of human life. He noticed how every culture advances from one age to the next, moving from childhood, through manhood, into old age, where it becomes petrified… into a Zivilisation or Civilization.
As it happens, unfortunately, people do not realize that. They think they do, but they really don’t. Their grip on reality is precarious at best. That is why instead of adapting to change, they remain immobile and get swept by the winds of change life chaff before the hurricane.
‘Mankind’… has no aim, no idea, no plan, any more than the family of butterflies or orchids. ‘Mankind’ is a zoological expression, or an empty word. … I see, in place of that empty figment of one linear history which can only be kept up by shutting one’s eyes to the overwhelming multitude of the facts, the drama of a number of mighty Cultures, each springing with primitive strength from the soil of a mother region to which it remains firmly bound throughout its whole life-cycle; each stamping its material, its mankind, in its own image; each having its own idea, its own passions, its own life, will and feeling, its own death.
The Decline of the West, V. 1, p. 21.
Some people believed he was a mystic. I care not for them.
Spengler was a natural born fighter. Due to a weak heart, he could not fight for his Fatherland during the War but in his own way he saw the path forward.
No, I do not believe him to be a fatalist, a man who left the fight to others. No, sir. He was a valiant knight, a Jon Snow daring the barbarians to Come and Take his Arms.
In another of his philosophical manifestos, he dared defy the cruel odds dooming Western Civilization, like so many other civilizations before.
“We are born into this time and must bravely follow the path to the destined end. There is no other way. Our duty is to hold on to the lost position, without hope, without rescue, like that Roman soldier whose bones were found in front of a door in Pompeii, who, during the eruption of Vesuvius, died at his post because they forgot to relieve him. That is greatness. That is what it means to be a thoroughbred. The honorable end is the one thing that can not be taken from a man.”
― Oswald Spengler, Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life
If Life is about the Search for Meaning, as I believe It is, then the Struggle is Eternal, but so is Its Purpose.
Oswald Spengler dedicated his entire life to understanding the meaning of the life bestowed to us. And as I live and breathe, I agree with the man.
“This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us . . . to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves, to act in such a way that some part of us lives on.”
― Oswald Spengler
A half a century later in America, a former POTUS, Richard Nixon, would show a deeper understanding of Spenglerian principles than perhaps many of his peers, and certainly most of the Left-leaning elites, who were busy burning their brassieres and national flags at the time.
“Struggle is a fact of life, but not necessarily an unpleasant fact. We can get more fulfillment from struggling for a good cause beyond ourselves than living a life of strictly fun for ourselves. Struggle is not fun. But it is better than fun. Those who welcome and enjoy it will get something out of life far more rewarding than those who do not. In rethinking our educational priorities, we must not forget this simple truth. Without the fires of challenge and competition, children will grow up untempered by struggle and soft in character, and later in life they will be ill-equipped to deal with its inevitable and often frightening trials.”
– Richard Nixon, “In The Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, and Renewal”
So, you see, folks, struggle is inevitable. It is not fun. You do not have to like it. In fact, you won’t. But it will validate you as a human being, make you capable of enduring the inescapable vicissitudes of Life. And help you bear its trials and tribulations.
The Struggle will temper and forge your Soul and Body thus ensuring your continued Survival. Without it, your unalloyed Self will succumb to the first cataclysmic change encountered.
Götterdämmerung 