No doubt, we’re witnessing — nay, we’re partaking in the hardest times for humankind, ever.
For, as far as we know -and I think there’ll never be found any evidence hinting otherwise-, since the dawn of our species, all along human history, every civilization or culture, every tribe or people, every society or race, big or small, weak or powerful, wise or ignorant, have always believed in the great beyond, some way or other. For one million years there has been no science or knowledge wide enough for providing answers to the fundamental questions, and people turned to believing. They believed in gods, spirits, animism, nature, reincarnation or whatever resource that had the same common factor: an explanation to life, based on another kind of life after death. No matter which of those beliefs you examine, they all point in the same direction: life does not totally finish when we pass away.
Therefore, to every single human before us (and there have been quite a lot) life made sense, so that they didn’t really need to worry about this and they could focus in the “important” everyday routines in order not to die too early: hunting, food collecting, reproduction, taking care of the offspring, clothing, housing… Up until our times, all we had to care about was to just live, and do it the best way we could, disregarding the questions related with beyond because those matters were taken care of by superior and unreachable powers: Mr. Thunder and Lighting, Mr. Sun, Mrs. Moon, Mr. Earthquaque, Mr. Volcano, Mother Nature, and of course the full board of Gods. Life was a bliss! No buffalo for lunch? Too bad, yet not a big issue, because they had a reason and a strong motivation to keep going hunting. No herbs to collect? Too bad, maybe that’s the will of such and such gods; let’s try harder. Son died off some fever? Same thing. And so on.
But nowadays we “know better”. Scientists came along, that goddam Darwin came along, doctors, researchers and all kind of sages came along that made it so chrystal clear to us, that there’s no life after death, and life itself is utterly absurd and wholly purposeless, that we can’t keep ignoring it any longer. And now we have a problem. For the first time in the history of humans; mark, reader: for the very first time, we have to deal ourselves with an issue we used to shod onto imaginary creatures. And not a petty issue, for that matter. Actually, the most important a person can come across, because it will determine all the rest of questions in their life.
True: we’re still a minority; even though the knowledge is out there at anyone’s reach, yet most of the societies chose to ignore it and stick to the old beliefs. But this situation won’t last too long. One?, two hundred years perhaps? That’s nothing. How long will it take for all humans to get acquainted with that disastrous fact: the absurd of life? For the moment, probably the youth are the most exposed, not only because they’re been spared religious education, but mostly because they’re way too smart and can’t be fooled that easily about such things. They’re on the internet, they master the computers, they’ll soon master the knowledge: any live thing which dies, that’s the end of it. Period. No souls bumming around, no spirits shuttling to the Purgatory, no virgins awaiting to be shagged beyond if you didn’t shag them here, no nothing.
And this is the worst drama that humans could have possibly imagined (and I’m sure they didn’t foresee such a tragedy). Because now that life doesn’t have any meaning whatsoever, well… what’s the sense of it, and of anytihng? What’s the point in living, in the first place? There can’t last any consistent values because all values are rooted in more or less solid and persistent beliefs; but if there aren’t beliefs, then what prevents us from any kind of behaviour? We’re lost, terribly and pitifully lost. It’s only a few of us now, but we’ll grow in numbers, and soon all humans will be equally lost. And then what? In recent times, our only God seems to be Money. Not that our ancestors didn’t care about it; of course they did; but then again, money and power served to the same purpose that life itself; they catered for the same thing, ad majorem gloriam of one’s memory here, and for granting a good welcome there. But now? It’s money just because, we don’t really know what for. So, soon money will also fail to help. In the best of cases, this new knowledge about our meaningless lifes will lead to hedonism and suicide (yes, suicide among the best of cases, because that’s the best, fastest and most lucid way of ending the problem); in the worst of cases, it will lead to an utter and lifelasting wretchedness.
May God have mercy on us, then.