On Antinatalism

"The thought of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror.
I would curse myself if I were a father." ~ Gustave Flaubert

""Every great idea is a tyrant when it first appears." ~ Goethe

Before the beginning, the end.

Although it is everything to us, viewed from some magnificent height of spirit, I imagine, our whole world is no more than another obscure fetish or fad.

Our lesson in coming here was never more than this: Turn around. The signs are everywhere. "Stop" "Wrong Way" "Dead End" But we have so much blind faith that there are no wrong ways, no dead ends, and we just go on. "Surely, the end is just around the corner. Let's breed a few more generations and see where that takes us!"

We are already spirit. We don't become spirit because we enter bodies. On the contrary. We forget ourselves, our true nature, our true home. We are prodigal children, intent on making our own way in the world, while merely squandering our divine inheritance here. Let us return to the family estate, where even the servants have their fill.

I think we are like builders, picking up materials to test their metal. We do not have to accept whatever comes ready to hand. We can discard it, if it seems to be unsuitable for our purposes. Do we want to build corporeal or celestial, sensual or spiritual, mansions? My opinion is that this realm is too heavy and cumbersome for my purposes. If that makes me weak or cowardly or lazy or impatient according to someone else's perspective, so be it. They can think what they will. People said the same about every hermit who ever left society to go into the desert and look for God, -- or every hermit who ever came back to society only to call others out, and suggest another way.

For my part, I believe there is much, much more than what we see down here, and I think it is in our power to decide for ourselves, if we wish to remain down here learning patience (and a million lesser things, perhaps), or if we wish to ascend to realms where there is greater freedom of movement. Whether we have a right to bring souls here is, to my mind, a matter for debate.

It is easy to anticipate the accusations which must fall upon a philosopher wishing to indicate more forcefully a path out of the world. But whenever anyone spoke of going into the mountains, coming down from the mountains, or crossing an ocean, people always replied that it was presumptuousness, restlessness, arrogance, foolhardiness, or some such thing. Nevertheless, it was more likely a spirit of exploration, demanding just as much faith, courage, and imagination as it takes to live in this world.