Is Life Itself The Greatest Fraud?
“Oh, Darling, won’t having children be lovely?”
Friends, if you have read my blog over a period of time you’ll know that often I have claimed that religion is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.
This morning I was struck by the thought that I may be wrong! Perhaps for humans, life itself is the greatest fraud of all. How so, you ask?
Well, let me present you with this scenario. We, each one of us are born. It is not a glorious or dignified entrance into the world. We already have various genetic positives and negatives and the environment we are born into has pluses and minuses. We might be born into a tribe of hunters and gatherers in Africa or we might be born into a wealthy family who puts down our name for Harvard the day after our birth.
Slowly we grow and progress from reading fairy tales to, as life begins to belt us around, slowly learning that not all of life is going to be filled with romantic dreams and happily-ever-afters. But filled with youth and immaturity, we put aside our misgivings and, clinging to most of our dreams, we throw ourselves into the competition that life is.
We fall in love several times, get badly hurt, get drunk, try drugs, try religion, gradually achieve some qualifications and perhaps get married. Valiantly, we try to follow the script we have been given: get promotion, secure a mortgage and, if we follow our urgings, a child may come along, perhaps two or more.
We then enter the parenthood stage and watch anxiously over our brood, take pictures of each one, worry over their progress, feel fear that they might be harmed or die or not do well at school. Gradually, in spite of us, they grow up and before we know it they’ve flown from the nest and they too are trying to fulfill their dreams.
So we perhaps become grandparents and we babysit the little people and love them to distraction although, as we grow older, we find them more and more difficult to tolerate perhaps preferring our own quiet space and our fading memories.
Perhaps it’s then that a new reality dawns for us, one that is quickly pushed away because it seems too unlikely, too harsh, too simplistic. That reality? That our only real purpose is the perpetuation of our species.
At birth, the truth is that we are programmed like all other creatures to mature and breed so that more of us are born just like the grasshoppers shown above. All the rest of our lives means nothing, our little triumphs, our promotions, our struggles, they have no real meaning only that which exists in our own minds. Once we have our children and they are breeding then our purpose is fulfilled.
Then, all too soon, we vacate the scene, become no more than a memory, a fading picture on a wall and, soon thereafter, not even that!
Are we pretentious humans really nothing more than animals who, like all others, are programmed by our hormones to breed then die?
Is our life no more that a gigantic, purposeless fraud perpetrated by nature?
Yes and no. Of course, we are mere animals and that way part of nature. Why do you consider nature a fraud? I LOVE to be part of nature in all its cruelty AND beauty! There’s more to life than procreation! Some of the happiest people I knew had no children (maybe no disappointments?) But back to nature – it’s cruel, wild, unfair, and very, very beautiful! Do I sound like Pollyanna? Guess I could be called naive and delusional but I feel happy and grateful to be alive…without the restraints of religion! My mother passed away this January. She was not really sick, just ready to go (in her eighties). She had a peaceful death without pain or hospital critical care or priests. She just fell asleep…..
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Margit, your mother was lucky.
You are right, of course, about nature. It encompasses extremes and we and every other living thing are caught in its web and suffer the same fate.
I guess other living things are luckier than we are. They can’t reflect upon their mortality or question their lack of purpose.
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Yes,
I think you’r on your way to a revealation, David , – nothing more, nothing less
I will not call it “purposeless fraud perpetrated by nature”
I do not think that ‘nature’ in it self is a perpetrator.
I just say, what a marvelous world to be born into, this IS/can be paradise, if you will, and first of all, do not destroy the nature (environment). along with your ‘visit’ to this place – and please – leave it to (the) posterity/descendants – as you received it. – I beg.
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David G Reply:
May 28th, 2009 at 8:31 am
John, thanks for your comment on this controversial post. Indeed the unexamined life is rather foolish but in examining life there are a few unpleasant surprises perhaps!
Unfortunately, humans, being what they are, could never leave anything as they found it. Their conceit doesn’t allow them.
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Oh, David. I would love for my mother to read this. However, she is off again on another dreamy four day getaway. Her whole life is a series of wonderful vacation-filled weeks and moments that don’t include her grandson. I don’t get it. Our relationship is great as long as I let her do most everything, her way. What to do: when one’s own mother is at best a fair-weathered friend? What you wrote reminds me of a kind of emptiness of life beyond procreation. An aspect of life not usually portrayed by television character parents. I am not there yet – to the point of grandparenthood, but I could not imagine being indifferent and wanting to be away from my adult child and grandchildren. He matters the most to me now, why would I stop caring, once he procreates? One of those mysteries of life that if one is blessed with a long enough life, may eventually figure all of this out.
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Grace, maybe your mother gave everything to you and your siblings and is “burnt out” from raising children. I know I stopped cooking from scratch once my children were gone….
Found this in yesterday’s local paper (associated press) ” Life is a tragedy full of joy” – Bernard Malamud (1914-1986). Never heard of Mr. Malamud, however, I agree very much!
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Grace, life is like a book. We read chapter after chapter but it’s only when we are getting into the final few chapters that things begin to fall into place but not always in the way that we’d hoped.
Margit, loved your quote. Francoise Sagan also said that ‘Life is a sick joke.’
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You mean, there is no happy ever after, and that life isn’t what we are always told it is?
You have a way with words. That’s why I enjoy having found your blog when I did.
Cheers old timer ; )
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Thanks, for treating my situation as though it were normal. It doesn’t “feel” normal. Now that I am a parent, I am convinced of my mother’s selfishness throughout my upbringing. She is just more free to do as she pleases now, without all the judgements.
I should give the ol’ lady a break. She used almost all of her energy and resources making sure my sociopath brother would be alright in life, often at my expense. It is actually best for my son to have limited visitations with her.
I hope you are all able to love your kids better than that. I felt I needed my parents even as an adult. I know that developmentally we shouldn’t “need” our parents once we are grown up, but the people I know who get along with their parents and they are all involved together, have a much higher happiness quotient as well as normalcy.
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Ah, Coffee, your words, as always, lift me up. Thanks, friend.
Grace, my father was the most selfish man I’ve ever met but I didn’t realize it until I was in my forties. Until then I worshiped him. But truth will out and we, who seek the truth, have to live with the consequences sad though they might be. He wasn’t my only disappointment.
Cheers to you both!
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Guess that parents can also be a huge disappointment…..there has to be a lot of healing before happiness will set in. Unfortunately, bad parenting might lead to bad choices that children make in later life. My best friend from high school achieved being a wife, mother, brain surgeon, and business owner. She grew up in a very loving, caring family with younger siblings and I know that this gave her the security to achieve as much as she did. I KNOW it was not necessarily her intelligence but her support system. If you lack this loving support, you still can achieve personal and professional success but you will have to work a lot harder. Who said that life is fair?!
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Children can be a huge disappointment too, Margit!
Certainly having a supportive family is a huge bonus. I wouldn’t know.
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There is one small plus side to having a bad parent. I was afraid of my father when I was small and when I was bigger we fought constantly, finally as adults we simply did not speak to each other. But he did teach me one thing and that was what kind of a person NOT to be. He was a selfish, bully who cared only for himself and I have tried for most of my life not to be like him.
Grace, your mother may have in her own way taught you how to be a wonderful parent. It is sad that it had to come in such a hard way.
I no longer hate my father because as an adult I can see how empty his life really was and how much he missed by being the type of person he was.
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Interesting, I too, worshipped my mother throughout childhood and into my 20′s. She was the goddess in human form. I felt like the ugly duckling next to her. She still tries to put me in my place, but it doesn’t work the same any more – so she doesn’t waste much time on me. She has a “tribe” of surrogate daughters that worship her and she spends her time with them. Of course they are all independant, successful women (whose mothers have died) – and amazingly, they think my mother is the greatest woman on the planet. I am not invited to any of their social gatherings. Makes me feel like she keeps me in the attic. Her boyfriend is very confused by her relationship with me. I think that is why they go out of town so much.
Thanks for allowing me the space to process a little. Sounds like we, here, share more in common. Thanks for the pearls of wisdom, too.
My parenting skills are a direct result of my upbringing. For sure, I actually used to say to myself, ‘whatever mom did, do the opposite’ and that way I ‘d know I’m doing the right thing.
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Being a grass widow, without offspring, and three dishonest, hateful siblings, I would give anything if both of my parents, who adored me, were still alive. Thanks so much for this article and all the comments. I am in my backyard with birds, trees dogs, cats, and bushes, and lots of fresh windy air, with laptopcomputer, and sun bearing down, because it is the lovely, lovely month of May.
Across the street, music is playing at a school/church festival, and all is well with my world. However, outside my space, there is much danger lurking, and I wish there were some way I could stop WWIII from occurring. Meditate for peaqce3 on the block, and in the world.
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Jeannie, Grace and Therese, I think the bottom line for most of us is that we manage to survive in spite of our parents and, in some cases, children!
It’s great that all you folk have made such great personal comments. It shows that some pain is widespread which makes it a little easier to endure.
Cheers.
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It’s good to see folks working together to ease some of the pain in their lives. Regarding parenting, providing the necessities of life while withholding emotional support is much akin to stoking the fires of a private, all consuming, hell on earth. For me, the end result of all of that childhood pain has been that it has tempered me. It has made me a better father, grandfather and now great grandfather, twice over, and for that I am thankful.
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