Part 2.14  The incredible, beyond-description bravery of the human race

Since we humans are now so practiced at denying the existence of our corrupted condition, and putting on a brave face and presenting a buoyant representation of ourselves to the world, as is being done by the people in Goya’s first picture, it is very difficult for us to know how much we suffer from the corrupted state of the human condition. Without the contrasting pictures like Goya’s, and the other revealing portrayals of our corrupted condition that have been included, we wouldn’t be able to see just how absolutely incredibly brave and heroic we humans have been. But now that we can finally compassionately understand our species’ whole tragic and horrific story we can begin to appreciate just how astronomically courageous we humans have really been coping with the human condition for some 2 million years. The Biblical prophet Isaiah described our horrific situation truthfully when he said: ‘justice [redeeming understanding] is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men without eyes…​Truth [i.e. understanding of our corrupted condition] is nowhere to be found’ (Isa. 59). And as a prophet of our time, and a Nobel Laureate for Literature, Bob Dylan, sang about our desperately estranged existence, ‘How does it feel to be on your own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown’ (Like a Rolling Stone, 1965).

Yes, now that we can finally understand our immensely courageous human journey we can begin to appreciate how horrible it was when we started to corrupt the innocent, loving existence we once lived in but had no idea at all why we were committing such a seemingly unforgivable crime. The shame has been absolutely immense, and the loneliness and wretchedness of our existence absolutely terrible! The great English artist William Turner’s painting Fishermen at Sea captures something of the phenomenal heroism of the human race for struggling for 2 million years through this terrible, terrible lonely darkness of guilt-stricken bewilderment and seeming evil badness, and the feeling that left us with that we are no-good, utterly meaningless, worthless creatures!

J.M.W. Turner’s Fishermen at Sea, 1796

It is a very powerful metaphorical depiction of our condition. Surrounded by a terrifying dark, surging storm of condemnation, people are hunkered down in a small boat trying to look after each other against the overwhelming horror of their situation. We had to be our own friends because we were no longer a friend of our soul and the rest of the natural world associated with it. We humans have in truth been very, very, very alone beings, but no longer because we can now return home to the happy cooperative, selfless and loving state we once lived in—that is as long as we don’t stand in the way of the fabulous transformation of the human race from living with the horrific suffering of the human condition to living free of the human condition and all those horrific effects!