WW3

Mother Culture has always accustomed me to believe that my culture is the civilized one, with all its technology and all. After all, we don’t have to suffer droughts, scarcity of food, or any tough weather (I mean extreme weather is a whole other story). Leavers have to capitulate to the gods’ will, eating what they are offered and not asking for anything else. Their wants are under control, but to the price of faith. They accept their dependency on their trust on way things are as they should be, no questions asked. On page 221, Ishmael describes why we are so eager to cling to our story that is full of stress and overload of work, and not adopt the Leavers’ story with the following remark: “…so it has to be that the other life seems even worse. It isn’t that you couldn’t bear giving up the life you’ve got---- it’s that you couldn’t bear embracing that other life.” The pupil does say something about this earlier when he talks about not being able to want something you know even exists. Maybe man has learned that it’s not worth passing some hunger if the price to escape it is work and stress. Man has been engulfed by the need to fulfill the want in such a strong way, that he has taken his survival into his own hands, a matter which was of no difficulty within the will of the gods. The fact of the matter is, this responsibility we’ve taken on has asked for the sacrifice of our happiness. This is a non-refundable responsibility. The pupil mentions something about the infinite dissatisfaction of man with the following quotation: “What the gods provide is enough for your lives as animals--- … But for your life as humans, you must provide. The gods are not going to do that.” (pg. 226)

This brings me to a grim reflection. The necessity to satisfy our unending wants has given us a life full of stress and unhappiness, which will eventually lead to mankind’s “nervous breakdown”. The population will become so vast that no amount of land in the planet will satisfy men’s hunger. And there will no longer be wars for land or even politics, but for food and water. Yes, my theory is that the third world war will end up being a battle for survival for water and food. The food will come not in sacks, but as acres of land and pounds of seeds. The water will come in gallons. At the end, the fight will be for cubic inches of land and milliliters of water. Humanity will cease to exist, taking the world’s life with it unless we enact another story. The Leaver story.