The future

I was watching a documentary called Into Eternity, which is about a place called Onkalo that is being built in Finland to store nuclear waste until it stops being dangerous to the environment, which will be in 100.000 years. I haven't yet seen the whole film, but I think one of the great problems the people involved in this project are facing is how to let the future generations, in 10.000, 20.000 or more years that this place is not safe, that they haven't found one of the great marvels of the Ancient World, but one of the most dangerous places in Earth. How to send a message across de millenia? In what language will they speak? Certainly not the one we speak now. How, then, can we communicate with them, if they don't even exist now?

It also made me think that we live in a tiny world, and we don't want to see beyond it. We don't want to understand the vastness, the infinity of time and space, the passing of millenia, the death of stars, the creation and destruction of life in millions of planets around the galaxy and in the most remote parts of the Universe. We live in this tiny, tiny world made of illusions and ghosts, of tiny gods that created the flowers and the blue sky, of tiny laws, our tiny concerns. I am not saying they are not important, we live in this world, we have to deal with it every day. we wake up, we go where we have to go, we do what we have to do, we eat, we cry, we worry about our waistlines, we take the subway, we walk, we walk more, we talk to friends on the phone, we worry, we suffer, we love, we are loved, we pray to our own gods, we sing quietly, we die, we resurrect. All this happens in this tiny tiny tiny tiny speck that floats quietly in the void. 

We hate each other just based of false ideas. We live behind masks because the systems we created have no space for difference, for truth. The systems we created are built to deny the void, to deny meaninglesness, when it is part of everything we do, it is the very essence of our beings. If we have a soul, then it is intimately connected to this void, to this meaninglesness. If there is a life after death, then it is nothing more than a return to this void, a complete embrace of the ultimate oblivion. But we choose to deny this entirely, convincing ourselves that there is, indeed meaning, that "everything happens for a reason," that after death we will be in a "better place, up there." We cling onto the hope that gathering once a week and repeating some ancient formulas (is 1500 years anything compared to the great ocean of 100.000 years that we are facing?) that we hope will bring us closer to some entity, and have it play in our favor. 

What is the pain of one day compared to 100.000 years of nuclear waste? What is the life of Christ? What is the hatred of one man? What is winning the lottery? What is writing an opera? We do the things we do because we hope some kind of recognition form them. We forget that our world is microsopic, that the rest of the universe is completely oblivious to our existence. We earn money because we have fear of dying alone and poor in some corner of a forgotten city. We marry because we want to have children that will populate the Earth and give us the illusion of some sort of immortality of our body. We kill and destroy everything that we don't understand. We spread hatred towards those that play against our own interests, even if they don't do us any harm. Why can't we remember every day of the void? Why can't we realize that the only thing that has any meaning is love? Why can't we realize that the only gesture that will give any meaning to the utter insignificance of our race is a hug, a kiss, an honest gesture, coming from within, from the willingness to connect with one another? Why can't we remember that that which unites us is much stronger than that which divides us? Why can't we remember that we all live crammed in this tiny rock, and that we might as well get along with each other?

100.000 years. The only remain of our civilization will be a cave, a huge cave, full of the most dangerous type of waste ever conceived. Is this the summary of what we are? Will this be our legacy for the future? All the destruction and suffering we have caused on our world will be reduced to this, a single cave full of our excrement.