Book of Aionism, Part 2, Section 1, Chapter 1 — The Law of Nature
The Law compels a Struggle towards Equilibrium
The Law compels a Struggle towards Equilibrium
The Law
Some time after the beginning, but before the present day, energy formed into atoms, and there has been a whole lot of struggling ever since. The Law which governed all matter was that atoms will seek the state of lowest energy. In other words, all energy organizes itself (i.e. “Struggles”) towards Equilibrium, a balancing of their positive and negative forces. So, if two atoms have the right combination of electrons, they will form compounds to increase their stability. Two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom would prefer to live as an H20 compound than on their own, and so they join up to form water. They were suffering in thirst, and so they struggled and strived, and they achieved ‘happiness ever after’. Equilibrium.
Some considerable amount of time later, after galaxies, stars, and planets formed, and after planet earth had been spinning around the sun for a great while, a primordial soup of chemical compounds formed there. It may be that lightning struck this soup, or it may be that a spiritual force beyond our ability to comprehend blew its metaphorical breath of life into it, or it may have been something else entirely; but whatever it was, it involved a great amount of luck (and whether this was good luck or bad luck, I am not sure). Suffice it to say that God’s electric breath touched the soup, and DNA formed from it. Life.
Now, The Law still governed this double-helix arrangement of atoms, just as it governed all other matter. Life was doomed to struggle before it even became life. But, something funny — or tragic (again, I am not sure) — happened. Similar to laws of logic which govern computer programming language which can be tricked into an infinite loop, so too did DNA matter get tricked. DNA could not reach Equilibrium, and as a result, it immediately began to spin itself into millions of different species. And it’s funny because if you tried to draw an “infinite loop”, it might look like DNA. That’s what DNA is in its essence: an infinite loop of ridiculously complex molecules now stuck in a spin cycle trying to meet the elemental urge to find its lowest state of energy. But give it credit, because it has never stopped trying ever since that electric breath blew.
Life evolved: the DNA formed cell walls around itself, cells joined together to become organs, organs became organisms, but Life was always at its core working for the unachievable goal of getting the DNA to its Equilibrium, finding the end of the infinite loop. Darwin entered: the forms of Life which kept the DNA looping infinitely went on, and those which could not dissolved back into soup and soil. The ones who did go on went in different directions. Different environments selected the forms best suited for reproduction, for years and years, until finally the forms began to process invoices for forty hours a week just to try to get to that Equilibrium that the Law demands of it.
The Struggle
This Struggle — energy seeking Equilibrium, per the Law — may be thought of as “Homeostasis”. Homeostasis is defined as “the tendency toward a relatively stable equilibrium between interdependent elements, especially as maintained by physiological processes”. While homeostasis is only ever used in that physiological sense, I posit not only that it is the same tendency in chemical processes, such as hydrogen and oxygen tending toward an equilibrium of atomic energy, but also that this Struggle applies to human psychological, emotional, and spiritual processes.
Energy wants to be stable, no matter how it is organized . Balls of energy (atoms) want to be stable. Balls of atoms (elements) want to be stable. Balls of elements (cells) want to be stable. Balls of cells are organs, balls of organs are organisms, balls of organisms are communities, balls of communities are nations, balls of nations are planets... Every level of energy seeks stability. Nations want low unemployment, manageable growth, clean water, and good schools. Planets want to end wars between nations, and to reach balance with nature.
Our spiritual energy seeks equilibrium, too: Humans want stress-free days and the right balance of chemicals in their brains — like when you take that first sip of coffee on the Friday morning at the start of a three-day weekend.
Energy seeks equilibrium, no matter how it is organized. The process can be thought about as homeostasis, but ultimately, it is a Struggle.
And so it is that amoeba move through water to consume nutrients and reproduce; fish do the same; lizards took it out of the water, and onto the earth; mammals formed herds to make this biological function easier; apes formed clans for the same purpose; clans of men formed specialized functions, still for the same purpose, until they became so specialized that Becky from HR processes spreadsheets for 40 hours per week … to consume nutrients, and to reproduce…
Stated differently: Biological Life is a Will to Power
Will, defined: an intangible force, an intelligence, which orders matter. Spirit.
Power: control of the homeostatic function — i.e. all chemicals seek a low-energy state, a balance of charges; and all biological life seeks a balance with its environment. Power is authority over space and matter to achieve this balance, equilibrium, peace.
Fish are propelled by a Will/Instinct to collect resources to achieve reproduction and balance with environment. Humans are propelled by the same Will/Instinct to collect resources to achieve reproduction and balance with environment, but they also seek a psychic balance — happiness, satisfaction of desires.
Every being Struggles — i.e. pursues Power.
But is there nothing more to life?
Equilibrium
All organic chemical life on earth Struggles to get to this state of Homeostasis, this moment of Power… To reach Equilibrium. To reach the low energy state. It desires to not desire anymore. It desires to make it to the state of being that is beyond worry. Chemicals and men both struggle so that they no longer have to struggle. We war.
There are names given to the state of Spiritual Equilibrium; that state after Struggle; that place beyond Sisyphus’s mountain. Those names are Heaven, Nirvana, Enlightenment. In western fairy tales, the phrase is “Happily Ever After.”
Happily ever after. What does it look like for you? Is it 50 acres, in the country, with a full retirement account, and a garden and livestock and access to fresh water? All men have some life-goals, some long-term-goals, some reason that they continue to work for an employer who he knows does not love him. It is good to work to achieve these prizes in life so that you can leave a better world behind for your progeny (if there is an afterlife, it is this: the lasting imprint you leave behind on the universe).
This Enlightenment/Heaven/Nirvana State, then … is it something waiting for you after you’ve made your last deposit into your retirement savings account? Is that what’s waiting for you at the end of your Struggle?
. . .
What might heaven feel like?
When you are thirsty and drink water, when you have been sick and wake up one morning and finally feel well again, when your team wins a title... Heaven is that fleeting feeling — it doesn’t even last half a second sometimes — where, in that moment, you have no desires. Either you have been satiated like in the above examples, and/or all desire has simply ceased (like the moment when you wake up after sleeping in on a weekend in a warm bed and you know you have no appointments until suppertime). In either case, you either have what you want, or you don’t have any wants. Of course, after your team wins, you go to work the next day, and while you feel great, the next obstacle gets put up in front of you, and the struggle resumes and you direct your desire to the next victory.
Maybe you do get something after you die. Maybe you get a chemical cocktail where you feel enveloped in everlasting light. Maybe your conscience needs to be in a good place at the time of death, and all your sins, if they have held on to you, put you into a bad mental state such that at the time of your death you are denied this heavenly cocktail, and it just goes to a cold, hellish black. Maybe further your consciousness does live beyond the death of your physical bodies, beyond the pearly gates, with your ancestors. Maybe there is light in the air, and our nervous systems are mere antennas — and when our heart stops beating and our antennae stop picking up the light, the light goes on, and that light catches another antenna someday, or maybe the light is self-sufficient and can experience itself without antennas.
I don’t know. I hope a lot of that is true. But I don’t know.
What I do know, is this: that all of the masters of the world’s great religions taught about heaven / nirvana / enlightenment as something that was attainable in this lifetime, here, now. And so I will not put my happiness in a hope that there is something that comes after here and now (Nietzsche said it best: “Why a Beyond, if not to befoul the Here and Now?”) I will trust them when they tell me that my goal is right here, right now, in my chest cavity.