The Denial of Death and the Reality of Violence

Our main purpose here on Earth is to survive. We do that by reproducing our genes. And as the horribly jocular saying coined in the British Royal Navy 250 years ago attests:

There can be no reproduction without copulation.

That is the gist of it.

We are born, we live and are driven to, and decide to multiply. And then we die.

This is it. No more, no less.

This is our lot. And call me nuts for stating the fucking obvious, but this is the only way to ensure we don’t actually die. I mean we do die, but when people mention your name 3, 20, 50, 100, 1000 years or more later, are you really dead?

Because in my mind, to be dead means nobody knows who you were after you cease annoying your friends and frustrating your family, or distressing your enemies. It means that once you close your eyes and return to the dust you came from, your memory is forgotten, expunged, or downright banned.

Stephen King is an asshole but the man can write.

But how can you achieve that end whereby people who aren’t even born today, will carry your name and feats on their lips, and more importantly on their minds?

There are only two ways known to man.

1. Multiplicat, multiplicamini – in short, find a mate and go nutz. I mean not the actual article, but close. Reproduce, start a family, build a clan, make a name, leave a legacy behind. Accumulate fame, build up the family name, make sure your offspring know & are proud of it, and understand that the Name is that which separates the Rich from the Poor. It is never the riches, the opulence that makes the difference. The most important thing for a Man is to kickstart a Family, become Rich and Powerful, but only if He can ensure that his Wealth becomes Generational. Many people get rich and their kids might even hold on to it, somehow, through the haze of alcohol, drugs, sex, and moral dissipation that ensue. But even when they do, and the 1st or 2nd Gen manage somehow to not squander it, there comes the 3rd Gen who boldly states: HOLD MY BEER! And proceeds to undo the blood and toil of the previous generations. Now, if somehow, the Patriarch or Matriarch accomplish the monumental task of impressing upon their descendance the need to keep the course and work towards increasing the family’s patrimony, now that is how and when people start take notice. That’s also how Immortality stops being a clear and present danger. It is always there lurking in the shadows, a mere wrong choice away from undoing the efforts of generations. But if you raised your kids right, then you can die knowing you’ve done all to forestall and push back the specter of Mortality. And remember this is a Marathon, not a Sprint Race. Let your Kids do the rest.
2. Build Your Name as if Everything Depended on It. Because It Does. Maximus, the General turned Gladiator said it best: What we do in Life echoes in Eternity! And nobody can say better. We are the sum-total of our actions. It should serve us well to know that what we do will make it through the Ages. If we play our cards right, and are moral, good people, and we try to keep the hurting of others to a minimum, and avoid unnecessary wars and fights, if we leave a better world than the one we found, then we can be sure the denizens of the future will appreciate our ethics. If we don’t, we will still be (in)famous, but I am unsure if I want to be remembered as a monster. I do believe in karma. How could I not? Everything we do or forget to do and ignore or dismiss with a wave of hand, comes back to haunt us. Everything. Every time we are assholes and behave like jerks and jackasses, Karma will come back like the Bitch She Is to Haunt us back into moral shape. Our Job is straightforward: become the best at what we do, be good to others, help and support our community, and be ready to give our life in the service of our bloodline and stand by to succor our friends with our coin. That is it.

If my master plan seems easy and simple to follow, that’s because it’s neither.

Because between us and Posterity stand many who want to achieve Immortality by Destroying Others and Making it Look like it’s A Good Thing.

People used to call these gents – bastards, demons, sinners, and outcasts. I call them what they are: bad people. Thing is the world is full of them. We are surrounded by them. And the problem is they are all in power. Fact is if you are a political leader, you are part of the problem. The pyramid of power breeds psychopaths.

The world seems to be losing its mind. Wars, many of them, engulf it from all quarters. We should be so fortunate to avoid a world conflagration, in our lifetime. But I don’t think we will.

But who wants to fight today for any country, king, or nation when all they do is lie to us, steal our labor through unjust taxation, and send us to die in wars so that the corporations can make a killing in profits. And nothing changes, to boot. Norway has just introduced a measure calling for the requisitioning of private property of its ordinary citizens in case of war. Funny how tax-payers always end up paying the butcher’s bill but are nowhere to be found when glory and rewards are dispensed by those in power. It’s always the corporations and the rich who get both.

Sickening how nothing really changes, eh.

Greed for money and power is what motivates governments across the globe. Greed is what binds them to the private sector. And greed is also what gives them control over the stupid multitudes doing their bidding.

One would be stupid to pretend otherwise. For gone are the days of Nelson, who is said to have uttered these immortal words once.

“And at that same dinner he was telling us all how someone had offered him a boat-cloak on a cold night and he had said no, he was quite warm—his zeal for his King and country kept him warm. It sounds absurd, as I tell it, does it not? And was it another man, any other man, you would cry out “oh, what pitiful stuff” and dismiss it as mere enthusiasm; but with him you feel your bosom glow”

Excerpt From
Book 1 – Master & Commander
Patrick O’Brian
This material may be protected by copyright.

Then, fighting for your King and country made total sense even though one risked life and limb for the merchant class who reaped half the profit and for the ruling elite that got the other half, along with much of the glory.

So yeah, even then if one did the math, as Napoleon had, one would reckon that the poor were left with some glory, but not much else.

Fact is that stupid is what stupid does, and it has always been ill conceived to fight for anybody else outside your family and friends.

Anybody else can go to Hell!

Smart money back me up. Sir Bom Gillies (1925-2024), a WW2 Maori Veteran, who saw combat in Europe, expressed regret for Māori participation in the wars, as a result of racism and discrimination in the decades after the war.

“War is a waste of time. If I had the choice again, I would not fight in that war”.

Sir Bom Gillies

To quote the famous Te Rauparaha (1760s-1849), a war leader of the Ngati Toa tribe in New Zealand, one must celebrate the triumph of life over death by dancing the Haka… just with a slight change, if I may add. While the Ka Mate choreography features no weapons, I am a firm believer in bringing tradition up to date. That is why I will do the Haka with my trusted Bec de Corbin poleaxe.

At this point you must be wondering what prompted me to write about all this doom and gloom stuff. Fact is I am distressed about the state of the world today but also in general. War is no longer a remote possibility affecting only a few corners of our planet. It is a bloody reality for too many of us. Violence has come home to roost with a fucking vengeance and I think I know why that is.

Call me what you will but I think it is our bloody fault we are come to this point. By hiding away and shirking our responsibilities for close on two generations, we have postponed the moment of the reckoning. We imagined ourselves safe with the stubborn persistence of the ostrich hiding his head in the sand when faced with a clear and present danger.

We did mental gymnastics just to push back the day we would have to take the bull by its horns. Well the day is come when we can run away from our dues no longer. Today is the day when we must face the odds as they are stacked against us and pay the price.

In this age of iron and blood, we must make peace with the concept of our mortality, and we must be ready to fight against all odds, to protect our family and friends.

In the end, it is all for naught. Somehow, we are all held captive by useless reality.

In other words, we are fucking doomed. But I pray and hope that our doom will pay for our children’s survival. Because everything has a cost. May the Lord be so kind as to afford us the possibility to atone for our trespasses without taking a toll on our blood and kin!