The Fifth Narrative

“Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter”: Admiral Collingwood, 1748-1810, Before the Battle of trafalgar, 21 October, 1805 (The oxford dictionary of Quotations ,p 213, 49)

Imagine that you are on a journey as fateful and inevitable as the one the hobbits Frodo and Sam are forced to take in Tolkien’s saga, The Ring. Frodo has in his possession the Ring, which must be destroyed in order to prevent the evil forces from taking over the world. He is on this mission out of sheer necessity, realising that the hobbits’ way of life and the civilised world are in mortal danger. If he fails both are doomed.

Your journey is somewhat different, yet both fateful and inevitable if you are to survive the next stage in the history of intelligent life. Your journey is different in the sense that it is not aimed at preserving the old world, the order of “Hobbits”. This world is doomed, regardless of what you wish. The only good thing you can do for it is to transform it. You must take its nourishing essence with you on your journey.

The aim and meaning of your journey is to reshape and reform wisely our world and simultaneously transform your self and your other intelligent beings.

This journey may last 10000 years or more, but in order to perceive its magnitude and significance it is being virtually condensed and distilled for your sake, into interactive, movie-like reality. In this interactive journey you are not just an observer of changing landscapes and events. You are the creator of them, while transforming your self as well.

What does it mean? It means that in the end of this particular journey, you are not going to be what you were at the start, neither physically nor mentally, yet your very life affirming essence will be within you, if you keep being faithful to it!!!

On this journey you will experience great changes in physical landscapes, societies, institutions and human beings. You and lots of Homo sapiens like you have transformed themselves into super beings, higher in intelligence, morale and other capacities. You or your progeny are on a mission to colonise outer space, maintaining a blooming Global Civilisation. Somewhere close to the end of your own journey you may as well transform yourself into a new and independent state; your consciousness, emotional life and senses will become, on wish, body-free. This is what the Fifth Narrative is all about.

The story of Icarus is the story of humanity’s ceaseless attempt to rise beyond its limits and its supposed imminent consequence, its downfall.

Is Nemesis always awaiting those who defy the natural order, as in the case of Icarus? Or does the story express the ongoing struggle humans are engaged in against the forces constraining us, a struggle which produces failures but produces also exhilarating achievements and triumphs of the human soul and ingenuity? Does it express the basic conflict within ourselves, between our anthropocentric view, where humans are the central beings and the purpose of the world and creation, and the theocentric view, where God is the core and purpose of creation? The historical angst for Nemesis is strongly represented.

Yet our historical evolution doesn’t lend validity to a dominant Nemesis in our lives. We get beaten and cruelly treated once in a while, yet see how far we’ve come! On the other hand, there is more historical value in our struggle to break out of our confines, and to prevail in the ongoing conflict between the forces subjecting and confining us so that we are less bound by the theocentric view with its Nemesis.

Another story from the Bible, Jacob’s struggle with the angel illustrates my view of mankind´s historical ongoing struggle:  

“And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. And he said onto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed”

The struggle Jacob had with God’s messenger at Jabbok was not initiated by Jacob, but by God, who wanted to test Jacob’s resolve, faith and commitment. And Jacob prevailed and was blessed. Being challenged by the Omnipotent Power to show what we can, and taking the fight against repressive powers (as with Icarus) may bring the best out of us and become a source of evolving inspiration for future generations.