The way out to doom

All the past generations not only have left behind a few nimble memories on the path. They have left behind the path itself for us. We follow the path without ever thinking in the direction that the path taken by them, and left behind for us, may not be the best possible one out of the infinite possibilities they could have taken at each moment of history. We, the current holders of the baton, are in no way superior to them in matters of making choices. And whenever we stumble upon a new thought, or a new perspective, or a new way of expression, or a new way of being silent, or a new possibility, we are as much dubious as they were regarding a best choice.

But before we concern ourselves about that trodden path which we have inherited from the dead generations we need to have some clarity, at the very least a vague idea, about our destination, about the promised land. Sadly the only clarity we have about our own dear dream is that the humanity, as a whole, have many destinations, many resting places and many promised lands.

Out of which the most prominent, as we know, are represented by those two men with about two thousand years between them. Nietzsche commands us to overcome the men we are. Buddha helps us to bear the men we are. The hopeful Yes and the soothing No.

We cannot use the two thousand years that separated them to assert that the path lead from the No to the Yes. Those two thousand years do not separate anything. Nietzsche had flourished in Buddha’s times. Buddha still lived in Nietzsche’s times. And both continue to live and flourish.

Both of them helped in paving the path, the one which we are taking now. And they were just two out of the few who were involved. Only a few because most men do not build roads because they are too busy walking on them.

A digression to the Present’s contribution. Our contribution can be compared as the playfulness of the calves when an elephant family goes in search of a water body. The little ones will move around here and there, not always under the belly of their mothers, they move away from the group playfully and then comes back to the group. By doing that they drag the grown ups too a little bit to the untrodden paths. The children influence, but at the same time they do not influence. Their contribution is minimal. But then the parents goes in search of the water body for the sake of the children at the first place. In his time Nietzsche was a calf like that. So was Buddha. Humanity would have struggled a lot, and taken a lot of time, to bear suchlike absolutism, to bear such caricature figures of opposite ideas.

And now back to the ambiguity of our ambition reflected in the ambivalent nature of our road. In aesthetics it can be stated as this - Beauty or Lack-Of-Ugliness? A layman would go for the former carried away by its euphony without ever being able to understand that both the concepts are identical and antithetical at the same time.

This confusion about the destination resulted in a new road - a new road that takes us neither to the Yes, nor to the No. We cannot reach those opposite ideas because neither of them are our goals. What we have is a common goal which is nothing but a confusion of antithetical goals. And the only justification the past can give us for the ambivalence of the path inherited to us would be this one - it is a compromise path. A compromise between a Nietzsche and a Buddha. A kind of Middle Path.

The tragic conclusion is most certainly this - we have so many antagonistic destinations (including those represented by Buddha and Nietzsche) and the path we have in front of us lead us to none of those destinations. And it is very sad that now, when we are totally lost, we have already started to feel that we can never reach the water source.

Staying together we are forever doomed, caught between the extremes of our own thought. Or else Buddha and Nietzsche shall part ways and usher in a new kind of doom.