The Opus and the Subplot

[Guest guest]

Evolution is one of those words which flatter us,

that comfort us, we love to think things are,

will, get better. The motto, the signal word,

which embodies all the hopes of our culture

is " Progress. " Darwin gave that ball a mighty

kick, and even Christians who hate the mere

sound of the word 'evolution' love and swear

by its identical twin, " progress. "

 

But if you believe, think, or have apperceived

God, Self, the Absolute, or just a primordial

X, as an unchanging, immutable, and eternal It,

does the word evolution applies to the whole?

 

Does not evolution implies change from

simplicity to complexity? And is moving in the

direction of complexity and multiplicity what we

seek, or is it a return to simplicity and unity? To

think the whole needs evolution is to believe it

was, and is, somehow, imperfect.

 

Obviously, " Life " seems to evolve, to have a

purpose. The purpose of Life seems to be to

survive, to become ever more conscious, but life

is only a minor theme, a subplot, and not the Opus.

 

We could as well say life is not evolving, but

degenerating into hellish complexity. Billions

of years ago, when life began at the unicellular

level it was very simple and free from pain and

suffering. Since reproduction was only a

matter of a cell splitting in two, cellular life had

only grow without death. So in that sense,

what we call evolution, could be seen as a

degeneration.

 

From a Buddhist point of view, life is the trap we

struggle to escape. The end of all rebirth as the

subplot, is the Nirvana we seek. The Opus cannot

evolve, and the subplot is but the dream of a

crazed composer. So Evolution is the delusion of

of seeing change as purpose toward an imagined

better state.