Rene Descartes of the Meditations of the First Philosophy renown reflects my present state of mind. The French man, Philosopher, Physicist and Physiologist must definitely have been a surreal genius, no doubt. His insightful question “Is there anything of which I can be certain?” reverberates resoundingly in my head.
Descartes continues that “The absolute ground of all knowledge has been located, not in God, not in Nature, not in the wisdom of the Ancients, but in the sheer existence of myself”. He trumped general thinking with this question and with his argument and position on the relevance of the self in the acceptance of beliefs, opinions and anecdotes. He, however, retrieved his old beliefs in his subsequent works of Meditation where he returned to older arguments of the senses, nature and society in accepting norms. However, the portal had been opened and the path set forth.
What does one know for certain in this entrapment of time and space? Does one really have any notion that’s entirely and fully one’s without any trappings of societal inundations and aberrations? Are my opinions really mine or are they resting on a quicksand of anecdotes derived from a conformist montage? How does the world work? How does the real world work? Is there one?
The responses to these seemingly capricious questions will probably remain hazy and colored for a long time and clichéd answers like “you’ll find meaning in time or it doesn’t matter” may surface and suffice for some people. However, this doesn’t satiate my colossal craving for real meaning in the real world. Call me weird but I’m mostly misanthropic of the world.
The world as we know it remains a mélange of malignancy, mendacity and malevolence that transcends beyond the perception of any one human. What the world is capable of is almost incomprehensible to its inhabitants. The current world is embroiled in a bitter war of subjugation at its own expense and to its utmost detriment. The old world order is giving way to a new world order on the brink of alienation from itself. A new world order is being born amidst a cacophony of popular uprising, looming bombs, untold revolutions, conspiracies, government apparatchiks and nations on a precipice.
However, the new world order may just be another cover up, another make believe or at best a continuation of a vicious cycle. What do I know for certain? Maybe a prescient prediction by Nostradamus would have been helpful. Of what certainty would that still be? I seem unable to believe anything anymore.
Unfortunately, I believe in the death I see around me. I believe in the scores of human beings being blown up, charred and mangled by incessant bomb blasts. I believe in the potency of Boko Haram’s scourge. It’s closer home now. I believe in the jeopardy the various #Occupy protests sweeping the world may portend to world order. History would have us believe that such #Occupy protests of enormous dimension and potential had taken place in 1968 in Europe and USA. Of course, the dynamics are different but the propensity of buildup of the present day #Occupy protests to such extent should not be overruled.
Of what then can one be certain of in the midst of all these conflicts, confrontations and conflagrations? Is it my life which supposedly isn’t mine at the end of the day? Is it our collective existence as Nigerians that is being threatened by intra-terrorist group, Boko Haram? Is it my country on the brink of a plummet into anarchy, chaos and untold hardship with the recent removal of fuel subsidy? Is it a world which is supposedly ran and controlled by few powerful men and families as the “Rothschild Myth” would have one think? Or is it a world in which powerful Government conspiracies fuel war in other nations in a bid to attain supremacy or check world balance? What do I know? Nothing I dare say!!!
Once again, the mind of the over critical was harangued by the incessant fickleness of our world. As he puts down pen, he hopes to find more meaning and certainty however befuddled the world may be. He hopes we all do.
Compliments.
Foye.