Why the Social Contract was signed on the Sahara
We are not simply a makeup of molecules or a distant cousin of Chimpanzees; we are the glory of the past, and the hope of the future.
I ask you, dear reader: why do your loyalties lie where they do? What pushes you forward, day after day, outside the longing for a Friday take-away or a Saturday night poured away in a cocktail bar? What pulls you up the Maslow Hierarchy once your basic survival needs have been secured? Does anything draw you towards greatness and honour in this world of material abundance and vice?
If your mind turns as blank as Joe Biden’s when answering any of the questions, then you are not alone - but then again, you were never meant to be bestowed a concrete answer to begin with.
If the mannerisms and mantras imposed upon you since birth, by corrupted cultural institutions designed to protect and guide you, then you were indoctrinated to perceive yourself as nothing but an array of cosmic atoms swinging in the cold, darkness of space. These teachings, dehumanising and destructive by design, convinced you that the turmoil and triumphs of your ancestors does not matter.
The rolling tank wheels of progress and history would make your descendants forget you as soon as your brain signals cease firing and your heart stops beating. Neither you, nor your bloodline, would ever carve your rightful place into one of the greatest, unbroken stories of the cosmos. You are nothing, you are always nothing, and you will come to nothing.
This is not what the traditionalist sees with their own two eyes. The very biological building blocks of our own human nature even take a grotesque view to this interpretation of existence.
We are not simply a makeup of molecules or a distant cousin of Chimpanzees; we are the glory of the past, and the hope of the future. We are bound, in duty and blood, to preserve what our ancestors built, fought, and died for, so that our descendants may live in more prosperous and peaceful times, and will stand guard defending the world we bequeathed to them in return, just as we did for our forebears.
This is not the life of a worker ant or spending a generation as the middle-children of history. It is the only logical and metaphysical approach to live a fulfilling life; one in which death is not feared to the point of terror, but the closing of a chapter and the passing to another place.
Writing through his magnum opus, The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote: ‘It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.’
As implied, some generations are dealt far worse hands than others. My great-grandfather was a mine sweeper in the Second World War, despatched to the deserts of North Africa to do his part in turning the tide against a German army that was, by that point in time, invincible.
He was sent ahead of the frontlines to pluck highly explosive land mines ladened with unholy levels of shrapnel buried under the sand. He, along with half a dozen other men, was led by a general who was only armed with a handgun, so if the advancing Wehrmacht decide to take them as prisoner - or take no prisoners at all - the war for them would be over.
Fortunately, that never happened, and he touched ground on the continent in Greece around early 1945 and then was sent to help stabilise Palestine in 1946, only to plant his boots back on English soil around 1947. I’m unsure of the exact dates and locations, as the complete story was never confirmed or codified by my great-grandfather.
He passed away in 1997, three years before yours truly was brought into this world. Despite never having met, there is still that unbreakable attachment of respect, trust, and love. He has lived through a tale told to me by living family members, and his story is forever scribbled into the scrolls of history, and will harbour a special place within my soul until the end of time.
The same story flows through your own veins, dear reader. It forms a fundamental layer of bedrock pertaining to who you are, and who you must become. My social contract was signed on the sands of the Sahara, and its signature will extend to countless other places and points in time, and will do so until the end of the world.