So, the cosmos does have a sense of humour! Last week I spent a fairly grim half-day writing what I thought would be a suitably profound and serious end-of-year newsletter. This morning I realised my mistake. Like so many seemingly clever humans before me, I had forgotten that life is a game and not a test. You can always pass a test (“win”) if you do your research and try hard enough – the same is never true of a game.
It's simply a waste of time writing a closely reasoned analysis of the many covid disasters and mistakes. The cosmos has its own way of dealing with those who cannot understand or “feel” the ethos of the “game”. We humans have a long history of opening one “Pandora's Box” after another in our misguided attempts to “control” the cosmos. This is what I have called the “mystery of unintended consequences”.
The Cambridge philosopher Alan Watts gave a good talk about this problem back in 1971. As long as we humans hold an unstated belief that we are somehow outside nature then we are going to go on making HUGE mistakes. By “mistakes” I mean taking decisions and actions that, in the end, make things worse for us, not better – never mind the impact they may have on other life-forms sharing our planet!
This story began a very long time ago – probably when we learned to use tools, control fire and make clothes. Of course, for thousands of years the illusion of control was very limited because the great revelations of science and technology were still “waiting in the wings”. Humans found it necessary to believe in “gods” of one kind or another – the world was still a “magical” place.
All this began to change about 200 years ago as the “magic” and “gods” were replaced by the revelations and discoveries of science and technology. Our modern civilisation began to believe that nature and the cosmos was just a huge complex machine that could be controlled by pulling the right levers. Humans began to think of themselves as “gods”. Choosing the right levers and the time to pull them was essentially a “test” where it was theoretically possible to “win” by beating the “machine”. Modern humans find the idea that the cosmos may not be a “machine” - that in fact it might be dangerously wild or even have a sense of humour – VERY scary.
The planetary response to covid (the man-made respiratory virus) is surely the final “end game” for this mistaken understanding of the cosmos. Two years after this “test” for humans began, we have seen governments, corporations and their “tame” scientists and doctors, pulling every lever they could find to control and manage the beast they let loose. Presidents and Prime Ministers lectured us in all the mass media with serious and determined rhetoric on the ways we would succeed in this “test” and “win the war against covid”.
Some of us thought this confidence in the “man over nature” approach – particularly the global medical experiment re-programming the human immune system by mRNA jabs – was very unwise. But most were simply swept along by the ever-present fear that humans might not in fact be able to control their destiny. If “life” really was a “game” and not a “test”, then outcomes could no longer be predicted. “Games” are different from “tests” mainly because they involve what we call “chance” - there is always a risk that careful thought and calculation may not be enough to “win the game”. Of course, it is this very uncertainty that actually makes life worth living.
The exciting covid “end game'
In the last couple of weeks the covid “end-game” has begun. It is a dramatic and hugely significant process. I believe it could be the first real step forward in the development of a healthier and more “grown up” relationship between humans and the cosmos. Almost everybody now knows that humans are not going to “win the war against covid”! In what is the perfect and ultimate cosmic irony, humans are being taught deep truths about the “game” of life by a virus they actually designed and made themselves.
The official covid narrative is beginning to unravel, “Thousands who ‘followed the rules’ are about to get covid. They shouldn’t be ashamed” these were today's headlines in the Washington Post. In Israel (the planet's most jabbed nation) even the medical establishment is now pausing before implementing the fourth jab – there is more and more evidence that the jab is what is making things worse. Bill Gates himself – one of the greatest and most dangerous idiots in this mistake – is shifting his ground. The Epoch Times has just published a follow-up to the Great Barrington Declaration reminding us once again that we should have had more faith in the magical power of our own immune systems to respond effectively to this challenge.
The question now is just how is the great mass of humanity, which has been the object of this doomed experiment, going to react? If we are lucky as a species, our failed attempt to pull the right levers will end without disaster. But, as with all games, there is no certain outcome. Just as our greedy use of fossil fuel energy may irreversibly change the Earth's climate, so the experiment with genetic manipulation of the human immune (and reproductive) system may reap a bitter harvest. We just do not know, but we can be sure that the cosmos is laughing in the face of our hubris!
Those of us who try to practice “self-sufficiency” in both thought and action are better equipped to “play life’s game”. As we enjoy the roller-coaster of life we know there are never any certain outcomes. All life is a magical process much too complex to tame and control. Life can, and indeed must, be managed through stewardship and wisdom. Life is a game we should play with excitement and wonder – with our eyes and minds open to all eventual outcomes. The “magic” of the cosmos has a mysterious purpose of its own. The amazingly complex ordered structure of our human brains makes us a very important part of this “magic”. Our challenge is to find what I like to call “wisdom beyond wildness”. The unfolding covid disaster is, I believe, a cosmic catalyst which should help us achieve this wisdom.
If (let's hope not) the experimental covid mRNA jabs do produce a long-term catastrophe in human wellbeing, then it seems possible such a severe lesson will be a turning point in our relationship with the cosmos. The covid end-game is now under way. We must wait to see whether it is indeed the “final” end-game or whether humans still have many mistakes to make if and when they start pulling more levers to control the climate!