Sacrifice

So the existential thought is arriving where I’m contemplating automation of everything. The reason being, I installed open claw, my computer, and have played around with AI agents. The possibilities are quite insane. Even just a simple idea that you could be walking around the city, and speak to your phone, and have it complete operations at your command, using voice, like literally just walk around talking to your phone just having a complete all of your work tasks for the day for you without having to be physically confined to an office a building a room a chair, is so extraordinarily liberating that is making me insanely optimistic about the future.

The future is bright

So, instead of being a loser Luddite that is afraid of technology, perhaps the most wise approach forward is to recognize Darwin‘s simple theory of evolution. Humans adapt, evolved, grow, stronger, smarter, and become faster. And with technology, this evolutionary process can potentially 100 X from here. And so a very bright future is ahead of us, where everything is abundant, the world is open, and our infinite possibilities.

Essentially anything from your imagination will be possible.

But now let’s imagine, a world like this, because ultimately it will come down to the survival of the fittest. Those that adapt, that built, they have vitality and drive to actually do, will evolve. However, those that follow their whims, pleasure, consumption, and live a life pacified by this abundance, will essentially dwindle out from the population.

Faith over fear

So yesterday was Eid Al Adha, I remember my time in Jericho, listening to the cries of sheep, being slaughtered all throughout the street. The stench of blood filled the air anywhere you walked.

When Abraham was called to sacrifice his son, he put the wood on Isaac‘s back and had him march up the hill, binding him, prepared to slaughter. He was promised that by doing this, his descendants will become a great nation, and received the promised land. At the last minute, right before sacrificing his son, God prompted him to sacrifice a lamb instead.

And so when I consider Isaac, just a small boy, willingly carrying the wood to the sacrifice, even without the lamb, he must’ve had some sort of understanding that he was to be sacrificed by his father. But because of Isaac and Abraham‘s complete obedience, he was spared, and 1000 years later a temple was built upon the space of this altar, and there we have the center of the world, Jerusalem, and another 1000 years passed, the crucifixion of Jesus in the same location.

And so when I consider sacrifice, it’s such a prevalent concept, idea, and even just visual that we see all around us. I mean, just think about all the images of Jesus all of the crosses everywhere it’s very dark and grim actually. You know to stare at this man who is suffering the most tragic sort of death is a very peculiar thing to put at the center of community.

But then simultaneously, there is something so comforting, within the imagery, when you see somebody with such unwavering faith, despite fear, that gives you an eerie sense of hope.

PRIMAL

When I arrived in the village in Zambia Africa, for the first time during my peace course service, I was presented with a goat, hanging from a tree for me to slaughter. I took out a tiny pocket knife and slit the neck of the goat, and we feast it all week.

During my time there, I recognize the sacrifices of each individual within the tribe, and the family unit, the fuel this community with love. Honestly, I’ve never seen such happy people in my life.

Every day mothers are coming home with babies on their back and firewood on their heads. The fathers are building churches and homes. The boys are making bricks with sand and mud. The girls are sweeping the floors and preparing food for the morning.

Every individual within the tribe and family unit has a role to play and an individual sacrifice they make each day.

And at the end of each week, everybody gathers in the same place at the altar to remind themselves of the sacrifice that Jesus made. And this orientation around sacrifice, as ultimately, what provides flourishing in communities. You see it all across the world, whether in a village in Zambia or in a refugee camp in Palestine as people gather to the Majid in the morning to the songs from the speaker.

But recently, I stopped going to church and I’m contemplating why. And I think I have a problem with authority. I’ve always been more rebellious, the type that always skipped school, that doesn’t necessarily like to follow the rules, that just kind of goes my own way and carves my own path.

For instance, I’ve been thinking, there really is no need for a priest, a bishop, a pope, and all of the hierarchy within the Catholic Church, if I can just spend time alone in the garden and have a direct connection to God.

God, tribe, and land

But if I think about Isaac and Abraham, and Isaac‘s obedience to Abraham, this is actually Issac’s obedience to God himself. Issac’s relationship to his physical flesh father is his direct relationship to God.

And so maybe the function of the church is for children, to be nurtured and guided towards that orientation to God. Because ultimately as a kid, you are completely dependent upon another physical human to provide you with nourishment, shelter, and clothes on your back.

And so maybe if we are all just some big kids, these flesh suits walking around, they really don’t know anything, maybe it’s normal that there’s actually hierarchy within society, whether it be a father at a church, a bishop of a district, or a pope?

Art gives life meaning

Beautiful art inspires. When you look out of your window, and you see a bunch of tiny windows and condos stacked on top of each other, it’s not necessarily than inspiring. But when you look out at the grand architecture, like let’s just say, for instance, of Rome, and you look at the intricate details of each home, and each church, and those small nuances that make it so great, it inspires you, too as a human to be great.

This is why I spend a lot of my time in nature, because I find it to be the ultimate creation and work of art. But simultaneously I enjoy marching upon the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, looking at this grand structure that man somehow made with mathematics and science.

What I do know, though, is when you are surrounded by ugly people, ugly buildings, and ugly artwork, it can definitely create an ugly spirit, and ugly heart, and ugly thoughts. But when you’re surrounded by beautiful people, beautiful art, it sparks beautiful thoughts.

And so let us say that we are going into some sort of weird doomsday where everything is automated and there’s a population collapse and life seems to have no inherent meaning, and you’re scared and your money holds no value, and you’re glued to your TV and you believe in all the news.

Well then isn’t the ultimate antidote to this problem then, for your own way forward, to create a new world, to create your own art, your own thoughts, and to give shape and meaning to your own everyday life?

And instead of consuming and believing in fear, you move on with unwavering faith, and create a space that can facilitate beauty and art and share that joy and love with others. if I consider beauty is truth, and the simple fact that some of the most beautiful artwork ever created in history arrived from the Catholic Church, well, maybe there’s bound to be some truth there.