The Hand of the Monster

The Pilgrim's Walking Stick | Written By Neb Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig

As people, that are interested in the survival of the world and our planet, we must pick up our courage and our intellectual honesty with two hands. Every time we pass by ruins of ancient cities, monuments and even cemeteries... we are struck straight in the face by the notion of lost lives, and the shadows of effort and dreams that fell apart like sand castles in front of the reality of our human fragility. The dreams of a human being and his ability to build monuments of self-glorification can really only impress us within a fork of time. We just have to look around us and we are tempted to find greatness in our genius. Without being like fish, we have crossed the seas, and without being birds, we have flown over continents... and every time death pulls us by our feet, we came back to Earth to offer our bodies to maggots while we still refuse to recognize our defeat. We can all see that the greatness we find in ourselves did not survive what we can consider the existential reality. Those who, just yesterday, were causing the world to shiver, today only are survived by our memories. Life, as defined by priests of the Kemetic temples, only represents the instant of a dream in the night of the sleeper; and before we even finish listening to the voices that are saying "welcome", we are already hearing those that are saying "goodbye". This is the biggest problem that we refuse to confront. This is what the modern society is trying to make invisible.

Everything a human being builds disappears with the human being. This reality leads us to question if the path of transformation of our environment really deserves the attention of any intelligent being. Our idea of transforming the Earth is nothing but destabilization of the order of things. Many times we have seen that nature patiently returns to its original state before our arrival, giving us just time to build our utopia and illusions.

Until now, despite all the qualities we attribute to ourselves, the frontiers of our species, are still uncrossable in any way other than through our imagination. We, knowingly or unknowingly, replace challenges we cannot face with those we can win (simply because we have created them). A problem that the imagination has created, the imagination can solve. The existence only exposes itself to the method of investigation instead of opening itself to our consciousness as a cheap reality. What, then, do we do with the fact that death constantly knocks at the door of our consciousness?

The human being left to himself would be forced to consider death as being part of the existential reality, and that would bring him to question the value of our actions on Earth. "Why should I suffer in pursuit of values that I will end up losing one way or another?" We say in Gourmantche countries that if it is clear that one cannot have, it becomes useless for one to suffer. The Hausa people also say that the useless suffering is like a useless thing, and only deserves to be thrown to a dog; and even when a dog finds its efforts useless, it simply leaves it alone.

If even a dog will abandon a useless effort, what would we then say about a human being that forgets his transcendental dimension and focuses on values that he knows to be created by his society just to keep him occupied?

The leaders of the modern society know that the individual that thinks is not stupid, but the one subject to emotions already has the best excuses for all the actions and crimes; his approach or his interaction with his surroundings will be conditioned by the causes of these passions instead of being a result of an intellectual and spiritual process that he might confront, by himself, with honest self-criticism. Our leaders know why they have conditioned us to feel instead of think. We say in my village that the one that does not think simply has no head.

In modern society, it is simply difficult to see how we destroy the world. The compartmental organization of the system makes it that even the teacher, priest or office secretary do not see their work as being a participation in the making of the bombs and even anything that helps the functioning of the destructive machine. In this system, every individual feels the importance of having at least the impression of moving forward towards goals that we find important; but the lack of global view of the mass movement reduces us to the idea of being nothing but an element in the herd. We walk so that the herd can move forward. For the politician, this is how we keep this machine running. They look at our destruction with pride because it symbolizes their intelligence and power to manipulate society. According to this system, what we think has no importance. The body of the monster is made mainly of people that will be shocked by the idea that their actions are destroying the world. Apparently, just like in other species, we are marching like a herd. The fact that we are watching ourselves perpetuate the work of destruction becomes the biggest insult to our intelligence and wisdom. We are the hand with which the monster does its work.