I hate to labour your eyes by whipping a dead donkey before you, but I am quite determined never to have children. Are my motives selfish? Yes, at least a little bit, but so are yours. Your children's most certainly will be. Given the all-too-real impending doom that resource shortages will bring, who would want to bring another human into this world? The world would be better off if I never I have children. It would at least be a little less noisy. I could teach them to be mindful of resources and abhor waste, but that is far less effective than not having them at all. It is better to have nothing with a disgustingly calorific meal than a side salad. What do we hope to achieve by having children anyway? Immortality? Legacy? A fresh start to undo your faults? A stroll through any ancient ruins will tell you the futility of the first two. The third, perhaps, shows a lack of faith in your ability to change. Perhaps people just want the joys of a family life, or perhaps they want to revisit a more innocent part of their life. Perhaps it is an attempt to preserve our values and ensure their future. Perhaps people are just afflicted by nationalism and racism (as we will soon see). These are all futile I hopes, I'm afraid.
I have long-since yielded to life's remorseless waves. We don't live, we become, never staying in one moment, each one being as hollow and meaningless as the next. Values, which we may hope to preserve, speak of a permanence that just isn't there. Our existence is one of non-being for we never really are; we only become. It's better not to resist this idea, though that is detrimental to relationships and having children. Developing affection for a vulnerable other courses abrasively against the brutal reality of the world. When you love someone, you want to keep them safe against the dangers of the world, but you ultimately know that there is no safety from physical decay and certain annihilation. The warm, powerful bond you build with another person is subject to deterioration, just like everything else. In my relationships for the longest of times, affection was ultimately a prison for me, a hopeless rally against the way things are. To treat another as precious and will her to never be harmed, and to promise never to leave her side, are futile projects, no matter how passionately you feel about them. You cannot hold on to something in a world where nothing is permanent. It is better to allow the tide to take you where it is inevitably going.
There is a flip-side to this, however. I have grown to see that the fear and horror I feel is just that. Against the tide, you needn't make a futile effort to cease its motion or drown under the waves. You can let it takes you where it goes, once you resist longing for permanence. Stand not as a tree, but accept that you are a leaf dancing in the wind. You are the fire, not what is destroyed by fire. Let the wind take you, like a hot-air balloon, and be above it all. Be like the fearless tiger in the jungle, or an eagle, soaring high. Use lots of metaphors to get over it — lots of them! I learned, through motivational lines, that it was okay to fear and lament, but not to allow it to cripple you; I could be with someone at last and enjoy an enduring bond in the a context free from the narrative of permanence. She saw life similarly and accepted it unflinchingly. Like two birds we flew alongside each other. I broke it off in the end ('Where else?', says you.), however, because she kept confusing 'disinterested' and 'uninterested', and her ass was a bit flat. And she used text speak.
I am digressing somewhat, but the point should remain clear: as well as the many reasons for not having children, which I delineated some time ago, it perpetuates a wishful grand narrative that grates against our ontological character. So much strife derives from the conflict of our narratives and our non-being, and we would do better to harmonise the two. Non-being is, for lack of a better expression, at the essence of, em, being. It is precisely neither essence nor being. Essence suggests a permanence which we are simply not privy to. We are future-oriented, never living in the present, never pausing in a moment. The only way out of this is by ceasing to be. Those who cannot bear this try to globalise their value-systems, in the hope of making them more real somehow, which has violent results.
Not all of you feel that way, and I doubt you would join me on asking humanity to stop having children. I hear many objections already. What about declining populations? Who will look after the elderly? I have thought of solutions for this already. Mass migration and adoption will even out the population. Millions will be lifted out of poverty over a short period of time. The only objections to this can be racism and nationalism. In the crisis of impending shortages, we will have to illuminate people that it is racist and nationalistic to want children, flipping a problem into a solution (once again, having children contributes to destructive grand narratives). Eventually, the ageing populations will have difficulty looking after themselves. By then, we should have developed robots to help us. The last of humanity will pass in peace and comfort, attended to dutifully by our loyal, mechanical friends. Their last task will be to open all the doors and windows of buildings, allowing the mark we left on this Earth to be more quickly abraded by nature. Standing motionless into rust, they can appreciate what remains — a peaceful, lasting silence.
I have long-since yielded to life's remorseless waves. We don't live, we become, never staying in one moment, each one being as hollow and meaningless as the next. Values, which we may hope to preserve, speak of a permanence that just isn't there. Our existence is one of non-being for we never really are; we only become. It's better not to resist this idea, though that is detrimental to relationships and having children. Developing affection for a vulnerable other courses abrasively against the brutal reality of the world. When you love someone, you want to keep them safe against the dangers of the world, but you ultimately know that there is no safety from physical decay and certain annihilation. The warm, powerful bond you build with another person is subject to deterioration, just like everything else. In my relationships for the longest of times, affection was ultimately a prison for me, a hopeless rally against the way things are. To treat another as precious and will her to never be harmed, and to promise never to leave her side, are futile projects, no matter how passionately you feel about them. You cannot hold on to something in a world where nothing is permanent. It is better to allow the tide to take you where it is inevitably going.
There is a flip-side to this, however. I have grown to see that the fear and horror I feel is just that. Against the tide, you needn't make a futile effort to cease its motion or drown under the waves. You can let it takes you where it goes, once you resist longing for permanence. Stand not as a tree, but accept that you are a leaf dancing in the wind. You are the fire, not what is destroyed by fire. Let the wind take you, like a hot-air balloon, and be above it all. Be like the fearless tiger in the jungle, or an eagle, soaring high. Use lots of metaphors to get over it — lots of them! I learned, through motivational lines, that it was okay to fear and lament, but not to allow it to cripple you; I could be with someone at last and enjoy an enduring bond in the a context free from the narrative of permanence. She saw life similarly and accepted it unflinchingly. Like two birds we flew alongside each other. I broke it off in the end ('Where else?', says you.), however, because she kept confusing 'disinterested' and 'uninterested', and her ass was a bit flat. And she used text speak.
I am digressing somewhat, but the point should remain clear: as well as the many reasons for not having children, which I delineated some time ago, it perpetuates a wishful grand narrative that grates against our ontological character. So much strife derives from the conflict of our narratives and our non-being, and we would do better to harmonise the two. Non-being is, for lack of a better expression, at the essence of, em, being. It is precisely neither essence nor being. Essence suggests a permanence which we are simply not privy to. We are future-oriented, never living in the present, never pausing in a moment. The only way out of this is by ceasing to be. Those who cannot bear this try to globalise their value-systems, in the hope of making them more real somehow, which has violent results.
Not all of you feel that way, and I doubt you would join me on asking humanity to stop having children. I hear many objections already. What about declining populations? Who will look after the elderly? I have thought of solutions for this already. Mass migration and adoption will even out the population. Millions will be lifted out of poverty over a short period of time. The only objections to this can be racism and nationalism. In the crisis of impending shortages, we will have to illuminate people that it is racist and nationalistic to want children, flipping a problem into a solution (once again, having children contributes to destructive grand narratives). Eventually, the ageing populations will have difficulty looking after themselves. By then, we should have developed robots to help us. The last of humanity will pass in peace and comfort, attended to dutifully by our loyal, mechanical friends. Their last task will be to open all the doors and windows of buildings, allowing the mark we left on this Earth to be more quickly abraded by nature. Standing motionless into rust, they can appreciate what remains — a peaceful, lasting silence.
Extracts taken from Recommendations for Saving Humanity: A Distress Call to the United Nations, by Nigel V. Fairflower.
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