This is My Will

This is my will.

If tomorrow you wake up and I am not with you, do not cry for me.

My death is not a loss and you will gain nothing from crying. Rather, think of all the good memories I have left behind. Think of all the struggles I surmounted, of all the tears I have shed. Think of all the smiles and laughter and of all the people I came to know. Their is nothing to gain from crying a lost soul. I find that rather selfish, for what are you crying for, except for your own loss of not having the benefit of living with that person any more? I hope I was not a burden in your life, but if I was then my apologies. If I made you happy, then there is no sense in crying to the lack of that happiness that I will not be able to provide. For if I die, I will not suffer but I don't want you to suffer still. To you, who shall cry, I do not owe you anything to cry for.

We are made like this. We are made to die. Be it tomorrow or today, or in fifty years, our end is inevitable. However, it is the journey we take to the end that defines us. I find it rather beautiful to not believe in heaven or hell, because that makes our only life more precious. We have to live in this reality; a miracle of nature - the chance we have been given to live is beyond any other thought of an afterlife. We are very lucky indeed, to even exist in the first place, so whatever actions we take, must be in respect to this slight possibility which has befallen us.

My will contains no material belongings. For what are they but like the dust my bones shall turn into? Everything in this world belongs to us, yet it doesn't. Death comes quick and sudden only for those who fear it. For those that welcome it, death is just another path. It is a reminder of our lives. You shall only fear death if you regret the route in the life you have taken. Only if you spent your life thinking there is another chance to be redeemed in the after life, or serving the needs of your church, shackled by the ideas that imprison you for the promise of freedom after death. Do not succumb to these fallacies. Live your life free and unbound. Kiss the sunlit stone on which your life threads and the people with whom you share it.

To live life you must be true to yourself and others. Your successes and failures are irrelevant when based on lies. Truth can be the only path to freedom, honesty the only measure with which you scale your friendships and your life. Then you must also be kind. This is the hardest to do, for it is in our nature to fight. We are constantly faced by struggles that test our discipline in maintaining an integrity of kindness. If you can be kind and humble in what you do and give to others, the world is yours. Not because it owes you, but because you have planted it with seeds of a tree that will bear fruit ripe for eating. You may not see the blossom on the tree, or even the budding of the seed before you die, but know this; that with your death it is not only one tree that will grow but an orchard, that will flourish on your grave.

With the passing of time, the grave in which my body lies will rot away and so will the memory of myself in you. But is it so wrong to be forgotten? Is it so wrong to carry on with your lives knowing that a person you knew has faded away? It is never wrong to be forgotten, because what is life if you live in ponder and anguish of the dead? What I have given you in life shall remain not in your memories but in your actions. To be true, to be kind. To love each other and this world, for it is the only thing we have and the only place that sustains life and this beautiful essence of nature; to live and then die, so that others may live yet again.

This is my will to you; much more a testament of my life than a testament to my death.
I do not want anything for I have no need for want any more.
But if you want and need anything from me, let it be life that you want and not the dust of this world.

What is Love and Happiness? - Part 2: Happiness

We are born knowing nothing of this world. Babies cradled by their mothers, but fathered by their societies. As we grow up we are battered by this society, shaped and moulded into a doctrine of sorts, an ideal human being.

Although, we are far from ideal. What we are raised to give to society is a necessity for survival imposed by the same society. We are educated, in many ways; enforced to learn, so that we might serve society, and be independent when we grow up. But what is really fundamental for our existence? What is important in society for it to flourish?

What a human being really wants as it grows up depends on what it was taught to desire. Society is an emergent property of a population containing different ideologies and moral values. However, its aim is to have control over the population and maintain peace within it. Without order, there would be no society or stable population. Thus, the only stable population that has managed to exist for so long, is in fact the society that we see today. It might change with time, such as creatures change with time, so does society evolve to adapt to different needs.

Human nature has always been societal. This is seen in social behaviour of primates, where they live in hierarchies. We thus tend to live in such social structures because we have evolved to do so. Without social groups, early primates would have never evolved and became human beings. It is in groups that language, religion, politics, music, agriculture and so much other fundamental aspects of human life developed.

Today, we are born in a society that imposes us to learn the accumulated knowledge of two thousand years of human history. Even though the bare minimum for existence is food, water and shelter, our needs have escalated drastically to accommodate the needs of our society. We as humans work for the society such that it can provide us with our individual needs; food, water, shelter, entertainment.

But what real values do the needs of the society have? If we place a hypothetical human in a cottage far flung into the wilderness and give him all the knowledge necessary to survive indefinitely on his own, would he live his entire life around the cottage; hunting, gathering and maintaining his household? Or will he venture to seek the societal life? Naturally, humans tend to want to live in groups, so he would probably venture from his home and become nomadic. The nomadic life has been what made humans so successful. For it enabled us to conquer the four corners of the Earth. But travelling is not just to seek other human contact, but also because of the need to avoid it.

When the social group becomes vastly large, and resources are limited, the group will split. In our modern times, societies are over-exceedingly large but resources are not limited, in a sense. The limiting resource of today would be work, for with work we can provide ourselves with the resources necessary for life; food, water and shelter. So why do we still feel like wanting to split from our social group?

This all boils down to what makes human beings happy. Happiness is an emotion expressed by not just human beings. Advanced, quasi-concious or concious animals demonstrate happiness in many forms. Chimpanzees will laugh when playing and smile like humans. Dolphins and whales will sing and swim around each other and jump out of the water. Dogs will waggle their tails and bark when presented with food or when they see their owners.

But what really is happiness? We might define it as our 'needs catered for'. We are happy when we have food to eat every day. We are happy when we have a home to go to. We are happy when we have a mate to sleep and live with. These are all natural needs closely entwined within our evolutionary history.

So is the modern human being happy within his society? To answer this question, we cannot take one human being as an example. There are different cases and castes within our society. But if we take a hypothetical human that has a work that is enough for him to live independently and be self-sufficient, that is, he can cater for food, water and shelter, then would this human be happy?

Presumably, the human would tend to want to find a mate and live with him/her. This is a natural instinct, and accepted. To live as two, requires both partners to either be self-sufficient, or one of them can provide for the other.  Then again, if this criteria is met, will they be happy?

The couple would have grown up to want technology, things to amuse itself with. It would want material objects to fulfil its lust for wanting more. But why would this be so? Naturally, animals would spend most of their time hunting for food. In humans, food, water and shelter have become so easily obtainable, that a lot of our waking hours are empty. What this means is that we have a lot of free time to do whatever we want.

In the past, the human beings with access to freely available food, water and shelter, made available through agriculture, used their time to develop our society. They had time to invent mathematics, this was used for so many things. They had time to invent philosophy, religion and politics. With these, the satiated humans could control their ever growing population and maintain a group fit enough for survival.

With time the knowledge base of humans increased because they had the time to study their surrounding, this became known as science. Humans invented ways to entertain and spend their free time. They created games, social events, music. Communication was important, and even though it was developed early on in music, this grew over the years. Instead of communication, music and writing - such as in books and stories - became a way to entertain their group and feel connected with one another.

Nowadays, these complex emergent properties of the social group and the consequence of the abundance of resources necessary for physical growth, created a complex society in which many aspects, seen from an outside perspective, make no sense in the survival of the group and individuals themselves.

Our hypothetical human from the beginning, would live a 'happy' life alone or with a mate in a cottage in the wilderness, but the majority of humans today are born in a system which does not allow the chance to do so. However, without such social system, the number of human beings would have never been this large, and the chances of mental development haltered by the lack of resources.

As such, our imprisonment in society is a direct consequence of our same freedom to learn and develop methods to sustain ourselves. At some point in the past, the intelligent humans outsourced themselves and cascaded into a developmental vortex of the individual and the social that would eventually result in our modern society. Our society would not exist, and neither would we, if it wasn't the way it was. It is a consequence of how our ancestors evolved to best survive their environment.

There are, however, ways and means to counter our apparent societal bind. Firstly, we must learn the limits within which we are born to live in. Only then can we surmount personal struggles, like the search for self-freedom and happiness. When we can clearly see our place in the society we are born in, we can find hidden tracks and secrets to fulfil ourselves.

Be it walking in a valley and looking at flowers or cuddling your pet dog, or reminiscing about the past with your grandfather or having fun with your friends, these are some of the social aspects which make us happy and which we tend to forget most about. It is our duty to fill the free time given to us in ways to enrich ourselves as human beings. To become altruistic and free. Freedom is the chance that has been given to us to live. Freedom is life itself. Our exponential population growth has given the chance for billions of other people to experience life.

Only by living will the baby that knows nothing about the world come into existence. It is only by living that the baby can learn about the flowers of the valley and their colours. Only by living will he be ever able to love and enjoy play.

Society is therefore not a curse, but a consequence of our freedom, and freedom, or life, is a consequence of society. It is in realising this fact that we can truly be happy with the lives we are living.

Virelda and Kripp

In the ruins of Skaipei Virelda could see, but mostly feel, the pain caused by her Mayor's tyranny. The trickles of light that penetrated the black cloud looming overheard were masked by the shadows of the towers sparsed here and there, rooted to the ground between the rubble of abandoned buildings. With each step she took on the rugged land, Virelda could see the soil weep. It leaked a green-tinted substance unlike any she had ever seen, tears of what once was a fertile land now turned to mud and noxious chemicals.

In the distance, a pack of hyenas chuckled and their laughs echoed in the blackened mist. Virelda stopped for a second but Kripp carried on and so she followed. She looked at her companion with wonder. His face was brown and rugged and he appeared as old as her father, even though he was only a boy. His skin was also brown but darker and it was tattooed in all sorts of symbols alien to her. Kripp noticed that she was looking at them.

"They were given to me", he said, "by tribes of the land. Good things I have done, good things they gave me."

Virelda veered her eyes towards his, "they look very strange to me. We are not allowed to have tattoos up in Skyscapes. The mayor says they are dirty and that the Highborne are pure of soul. Therefore we cannot dirty ourselves with such things as tattoos on our bodies."

Kripp tried to conceal his laughter and he turned away from Virelda but she immediately noticed.

"What's so funny about what I've said?", she snapped angrily.

"Nothing I think", replied Kripp still laughing. He now turned back to Virelda.
With effort he continued, "I think that is very stupid of your Mayor, to tell you to do what to do".

Virelda thought for a second then answered, "Well, our Mayor is kind and we obey and love him. Without him we would be living in the dirt like the Moles."

Kripp took a quick step backwards, obviously hurt by what Virelda had just said. He turned away from her and continued his walk to where he had promised to take Virelda.

Stunned by her own words, Virelda hurried behind him and followed.
They did not utter another word until they arrived at the tunnel.

Skyscapes

Virelda looked down from her balcony on the eighty second floor at the black cloud looming below her. Above her, the building scraped the skies for another hundred floors then extended outwards reaching to another tower a hundred metres or so to the side of it. All across the horizon, protruding out of the black cloud were towers, brilliant white or shimmering silver, growing towards the sun. Most of them were connected with bridges and almost all of them had a ceiling that extended outwards to their nearest tower. This was the city she was born and raised in. This was Skyscapes, the city in the skies. 

Two hundred years ago, man had reached a pivotal role in his technological and social development. Technology had permitted the building of even larger skyscrapers then ever before. Able to withstand natural disasters and their own weight, they now defied the clouds and the winds of the skies. An architect had also invented a way to connect skyscrapers with open spaces that seemingly hovered in thin air from one tower to another. The original design was used for a garden and extended a couple of metres. Nowadays, these so called skybridges were built to connect skyscrapers such that no citizen of Skyscapes had to go down to ground zero in order to cross into another tower. So was the beginning of the great rift between the people of Skyscapes and the derelict Moles. 

The Moles were poor mistreated people. Beaten yet resistant, they were slaves to the Skyscape highborne. Over the years, a black cloud had covered the city that was once known as Skaipei. This cloud, a product of pollution and egoism by the hands of the rich of Skaipei infested the lands and the city like a plague. The remaining fields that stretched for kilometres on the outskirts of the city were scorched and poisoned until people started to starve. Water was polluted and undrinkable. The High-mayor of Skaipei had ordered his elite cast to live on the topmost floors of the towers of the city. People were hired to dig underground for resources and to harvest fungi for food. Such was the time when the poorest of the city, the harvesters, became known as the Moles.

In Skaipei technology had permitted the construction of what are called Biotowers, large skyscrapers that are wholly dedicated to planting food. Plants are grown on each floor in inert media without the need for soil. They are grown in artificial light and fertilized with minerals harvested by the Moles. Water is gathered in great Mist-Net towers and channeled to the Biotwers. Over time, the elite of Skaipei became independent and did not require the Moles for their survival. The High-mayor had then ordered the lower floors of the towers to be shut and isolated from the top ones. The black cloud was the boundary which was chosen, and the Moles were forever left to forage in the rotting lands underneath the black cloud. At this time, Skyscape and Virelda were born. 

There was one problem associated with the prosperity of Skyscapes, however. The Highborne could still not build indefinitely upwards, and the spaces between different towers was quickly diminishing. They had to build new towers, and in so doing, they had to make contact with the Moles. Starving, the Moles were hired on cheap labour by the investors of Skyscapes and around two to three towers started showing up through the black cloud each year. 'The city that shines and dances in the wind', was the motto the High-mayor used as propaganda to attract loyalty in his investors and lower ranking supporters. 

The children of the elite were born never to see the land. They were truly the children of the skies. Virelda was one of them. Daughter of a Biotower farmer, she was not one of the highest ranking individuals in this society, yet she was lucky enough to be part of it. On her nineteenth birthday, her father had promised her to show her the mountain view from the topmost floor of the highest building in Skyskapes, the magnificent Cosmotron.

Cosmo, as it was called, was constructed by a family of Highborne known as the 'Space Dwellers'. This family invested and researched ways to prospect precious metals from space rocks, and was famous for building the space elevator between Earth and the Moon around fifty years earlier. Virelda knew, that to get her to Cosmo, her father had tp compromise quite a lot of his budget. Yet, she hoped he would keep his promise, and so he did.