There is a saying by one of my favorite Greek authors, Nikos Kazantzakis:
“Υπάρχει στον κόσμο τούτον ένας μυστικός νόμος - αν δεν υπήρχε, ο κόσμος θα’ταν από χιλιάδες χρόνια χαμένος- σκληρός κι απαραβίαστος: το κακό πάντα στην αρχή θριαμβεύει και πάντα στο τέλος νικάται.”
It is impossible to translate his writings and do full justice to their beauty and depth but in English it would be something like this:
“There is an underlying law in this universe - if it weren’t, everything would be gone by now- tough and inviolable: evil always triumphs in the beginning and always gets defeated in the end.”
Why would that be a law? Because evil is not sustainable. If you keep destroying, you are left with nothing. The idea that we can destroy the Other and take care of Us, is rooted in ignorance. We are all interdependent.
Only Love is sustainable. Why? Because to love means to take care of, to support, to help thrive. And this is the only way to maintain something.
Why is evil even possible? Why would it have to thrive in the beginning? Because ignorance is the starting point. Quoting Albert Einstein:
“Ein Mensch ist ein räumlich und zeitlich beschränktes Stück des Ganzen, was wir „Universum“ nennen. Er erlebt sich und sein Fühlen als abgetrennt gegenüber dem Rest, eine optische Täuschung seines Bewusstseins. Das Streben nach Befreiung von dieser Täuschung ist der einzige Gegenstand wirklicher Religion. Nicht das Nähren der Illusion sondern nur ihre Überwindung gibt uns das erreichbare Maß inneren Friedens.”
Translated in English:
“A human being is a spatially and temporally limited piece of the whole, what we call the “Universe.” He experiences himself and his feelings as separate from the rest, an optical illusion of his consciousness. The quest for liberation from this illusion is the only object of true religion. Not nurturing the illusion but only overcoming it gives us the attainable measure of inner peace.”
Einstein has said something else as well: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
I slightly disagree with him. I think that our imagination can only draw from what we already know or otherwise we wouldn’t be able to imagine it. The mere fact of being able to imagine something, means it is far more attainable than we might think. I had a music teacher with whom I enjoyed so much discussing (because we disagreed on everything) that we would spend entire lessons talking and remember to play some music the last 5 minutes of the class. He often lamented about how messed up the world is. I remember one day I asked him: “Why does it bother you? How do you know that something else is even possible?”. The question of course was a rhetoric one and was meant to ignite hope. Every human being on Earth knows that something else is possible. Maybe for the dramas we are personally deeply entangled in, we lose sight of alternatives, but overall we know that this is not the only way. And this knowledge is power.
We can imagine our way out of this. Conflicts resolved by diplomacy. Resources spent into restoration and healing. Elite athletes win games first in their heads and then in the court. They spend hours upon hours visualizing themselves winning, as part of their training. Visualization helps form and strengthen neural pathways. What we need is new neural pathways in humanity’s collective brain. When nothing else seems feasible, start by imagining. And know that if you can imagine it, you can do it.