PILLARS OF JELLY

Víctor Saltero
 I have spent my entire life trying to understand life, and the first thing I understood was that
I DID NOT ASK TO BE BORN; that in reality, no one asked to be born. Despite this, we are
all navigating an unknown sea, trying to understand why we were born and what for, and
asking whether there is any meaning in this journey.

Religion, science, philosophy and even politics all try to answer that question. They have
been offering their theories for centuries, but sooner or later these all turn out to be incomplete,
if not utterly incorrect. What’s worse, most of these answers are just trying to establish
ideological principals that would justify and protect some kind of power, to maintain the
privileges of a minority.

So, to make progress in this individual quest and look for some kind of useful purpose for
our existence, we have to try to answer a few key questions that will help us better understand
ourselves. To do that, we need an open mind and as much knowledge as the history of
humanity can give us. Those key questions are as follows: Who are human beings, and what
role do we play in the universe? Why is our voyage through space on this beautiful planet just
a series of small moments of happiness separated by long stretches of anxiety and fear? What
are the truths and values that we as humans have created over the centuries to support our
lives, leading us to act in certain ways and not in others? And finally, does our existence have
any meaning?

Let’s begin. First of all, I should clarify that I’m not trying to say that I have all the answers
written on a note in my pocket. However, a fresh look at some of the important things that
affect our daily lives could be a good starting point for a new way to experience life.

As I said before, the truth is that nobody asks to be born. It happens as part of the natural
computer program that guides our behavior and compels us to reproduce, with the only
apparent aim of avoiding the extinction of our species. But after birth, from the child’s first
moments, their environment begins to instill them with the principles they must live with from
then on and until the end of their existence, through the customs and values of each specific
culture, regardless of whether those values will bring them joy or misery.

These values, in the form of social and personal “truths”, are the pillars that guide our
behavior in the space between birth and death—which we call life—even though we were not
involved in their creation. They have existed for a long time. They were built by those who
came before us, and each generation perpetuates them with complete disregard for the results
they have given us over time.
 In our reality, millions of people around the world complete their daily tasks every day.
They get up early, take the kids to school, go to work, go shopping, try to maintain their social
relationships and finally come to the conclusion that they are missing something. And this is in
the best case, while others simply struggle to survive each day. People in the first group see
that their work, their possessions, their hobbies and so on are not enough (while those in the
second group don’t even have the luxury of worrying about such things). They want life to
have meaning and a narrative framework that explains it, something to relieve their chronic
loneliness or raise them above those minor, everyday things. They need to know that there is
more to life than just hurtling down a road to nowhere. They sense that they aren’t making any
choices in life; opportunities are presented, and their only choice is whether to take them. They
know that time is a key factor, that you shouldn’t waste what you have. Or rather, that you
should act as if you don’t have any.

But the strange thing about all this is that we know that this feeling of unease makes us
unhappy, but we haven’t found a solution for it. And like a loop, generation after generation,
we fall into the same trap without resolving it.

One of the reasons why we can’t successfully deal with this feeling is our huge lack of
knowledge about ourselves as individuals and, in particular, about ourselves as a group. This
confusion is made worse by the fact that we know so little about the history of humanity on
Earth, because what politicians, universities and historians teach us could come with the same
disclaimer we see in films: “any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental”.

Why does this happen? Because history is a tool used to legitimize political or religious
power and a weapon to launch at enemies. However, it’s what we are taught from childhood,
and we don’t tend to question it, even though it has been heavily distorted. We therefore learn
very little about it, which is very harmful for human society, leaving us unable to learn from
the mistakes people made in the past. Ultimately, we tell ourselves so many lies that we can’t
understand ourselves, making it hard to find out what we are doing in this life and in the world.

Let’s talk about that.

First, we have to accept that people are better at asking questions than answering them.
That’s why it is so difficult for us to understand what we are and what our place is in the
universe. We know that, basically, we are conscious matter made from particles that are
apparently controlled by a “natural computer program”, with a temporary physical structure,
and that we are travelling through the vastness of space on our beautiful planet as if it were a
space ship.

As I have been born, I would at least like to know why and what for. That’s why I am
inviting you to share this journey of exploration with me, as I try to find the answer.
 To begin with I should say that, logically, we are the main cause of our own sleepless
nights. But we have to accept that we are just one more of the many animals living on Earth,
with a slightly higher IQ than the other beings living on this planet, although it is much lower
than we estimate. Experts say that 98% of our chromosomes are identical to those of other
mammals. So, it is that 2% difference that causes most of our problems. You will see why.

We have the stupid habit of assuming that we are the most highly developed part of the
cosmos. If you carefully reflect on this thought, you will see that not only is it false, it is also
ridiculous. There are more than two hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone, and the known
universe contains hundreds of billions of galaxies. The idea that all of that exists for our
enjoyment and contemplation is a harsh demonstration of our stupidity, and that’s without even
mentioning the quantum worlds that, like most of the universe, we are incapable of
comprehending.

To identify our position more clearly, consider that the entire history of humanity on Earth
is a mere blink on the cosmic time scale. So, to better understand ourselves, we must start by
accepting that the universe is not built on a human scale and that only the limitations of our
intelligence have led us to imagine ourselves as the top rung on the ladder of evolution and by
asking ourselves, among other things: Are we the only intelligent beings in the universe? This
question itself is another symptom of our great limitations, as even simple mathematical
probabilities show that the existence of infinite forms of life and intelligence is certain; our
ability to contact them is a separate issue, given the dimensions of the cosmos.

Having said all that, which helps identify our position at the right scale with fewer
egotistical fantasies, it is important to establish that humanity is a special phenomenon within
the known world that surrounds us. It is therefore legitimate to ask ourselves how that special
phenomenon came to exist. The answer is very simple: it was born, just like any other living
being. From the micro-organism to the monkey, we are all very similar, and one common
factor that we all share is the impulse to survive: the so-called survival instinct, which
underlies most of our behavior.

However, there is one small difference that separates us from the other animals we know of,
which has a great influence on our behavior. I am referring to our certain knowledge that one
day we will die. This determines much of our individual and collective behavior. Based on this
knowledge of our death, we aspire to be remembered as a way to achieve a shred of
immortality. It is also why people are aware of themselves as animals in transit, and why we
struggle desperately to assert our right to have the best that the world can give us during the
short time we live in it.

Ultimately, at birth every person turns their individual life into a desperate outcry for
survival, but the greatest irony is that they must inevitably die; other people manipulate them
to control their mind and muscles, promising them some semblance of immortality using
messages about “life” after death.
 Now, without further ado, it’s time to start looking for answers to the questions I posed a
few paragraphs back about the meaning of our existence. As I said, a better understanding of
ourselves as individuals and as a society will be very helpful in doing so.

To begin with, I should specify that like any building, we humans have a foundation that we
call the survival instinct, as well as various pillars that rest on that foundation and support our
lives. That foundation underlies our behavior, but we have no way to affect it. On the other
hand, we can affect the pillars that support our lives, because those were created and shaped by
humanity itself.

Let’s begin this essential journey at the beginning, by analyzing our foundation.
 THE SURVIVAL INSTINCT

This instinct is the basis of all life, and no one can thrive without it.

Everything in the universe emerges from a set of particles that, in infinite combinations,
make up everything that exists. However, the survival instinct seems to be exclusive to living
beings and is not found in the other types of matter.

It is clear that different kinds of life continually appear and disappear, and only those whose
genetic programming includes certain characteristics can become viable and long-lasting, with
survival instinct being the essential characteristic. That is what gives us the fear of death,
sexual desire resulting from the urge to reproduce, hunger for food and the need to own goods
to ensure our future survival.

Human beings have all these characteristics imprinted in our genes, which is why we are
still here. These characteristics define almost all of our behaviors. We only have two
distinctive features that slightly differentiate us from all other known animals: the certainty that
one day we will die, as previously mentioned, and a certain level of technological ability that
has allowed us to get where we are today. However, in the end, this same ability also often
brings us to the brink of self-destruction.

In any case, it is clear that humans would never have been able to survive on Earth with just
our physical abilities, no matter how often we go to the gym, as there are many predators that
are far superior in that regard. We have managed to survive until now because we were able to
create the technology we needed to control fire, make arrows and create medicines to eliminate
various pathogenic micro-organisms. We have also been able to extend our life expectancy
over the last few centuries, now reaching three times that of our cave-dwelling ancestors, and it
will continue to extend in future (if we don’t destroy ourselves first).

However, the survival instinct is not the only thing that lies beneath our individual and
social behaviors. As previously mentioned, certain pillars have emerged and grown from this
instinct that are also decisive factors, which notably affect our behaviors after birth.

There are seven of these pillars. Unlike the survival instinct, which we received naturally,
the pillars were built by humans themselves over the course of our existence on Earth, and they
are highly relevant to our well-being as we use them to shape our lives.
 We have built the social pillars of the family, tribe, nation, state and war, as well as the
individual pillars of friendship and love, violence, sex, the need to possess, and the fear of
death.

The question is: Are we trying to support our existence on sturdy pillars, or have we built
them from flimsy jelly, and is that the ultimate source of our anxiety, loneliness and
contradictions? Let’s take a look.
 PILLAR ONE: SEX

Sex is our first pillar, because its practice leads to the start of life. A spermatozoid,
programmed to find a female egg, finds one and fertilizes it, creating a new living being. To
encourage us to reproduce, nature has caused the sexual act to create pleasurable sensations.

Let’s look at how human society has dealt with this subject over time.

Over the centuries, our social concept of sexual relationships has changed significantly. In
fact, many ancient civilizations produced statues and engravings with sexual connotations in
the form of phalluses or women with large breasts. This has almost always been interpreted as
a fertility cult, when in reality it is more likely to have been a cult to sexual pleasure itself.

However, the first important question is: How has society come to have such a negative and
sinful view of sex?

The explanation is the demonization of sex by certain religions. Let’s take a brief detour to
talk about these.

To begin with, we should specify the following: God did not create mankind; it was
mankind that created God. We did so to try to order our minds and find meaning in the
apparent chaos of life, which completely escaped our understanding. These uncertainties were
the origin of religion.

Essentially, monotheistic religions seem to have been the ones that established this negative
social perception of sex, particularly Judaism and its variants, including the various types of
Christianity. In fact, in the Greek and Roman eras (and in many other cultures), sex was
absolutely normal and accepted, and pleasure-seeking was socially well-regarded as an end in
itself. This pleasure-seeking without any kind of remorse applied to food, sex, social
relationships and so on. It was all seen as a kind of recreation, with no moral judgement on any
of these activities.

This changed in the fourth century CE, when the emperor Theodosius I declared
Christianity to be the official religion of the Roman Empire, which had previously been
secular. This was the starting point for transforming the social perception of pleasure in general
and sex in particular.
 There was one basic reason for encouraging this change in mentality. The early Christian
Church needed to mythologize its origins in order to give itself legitimacy, using various
stories (mostly invented) of suffering, martyrdom and persecution as propaganda to convince
people that faith is strong enough for believers to endure any kind of suffering, and that
suffering itself is the key to paradise after death, as Muslims still believe today.

These purely fantastical stories—the Romans did not assassinate children or feed Christians
to lions—enabled Christianity to successfully build up its social recognition. This led the
Church to understand that suffering made people stressed and vulnerable, and confirmed that
greater vulnerability and anxiety resulted in greater success for its religious message among
people who needed answers to their fears.

In fact, generally speaking, religions capture more believers in times of great social or
individual upheaval. If people are living prosperous and pleasant lives, they are not usually
very receptive to religions, as they have no need for reassurance; all that these religions tend to
promise is happiness after death, and as prosperous people logically do not stop believing in
happiness, they get by without them. As such, human anxiety is what brings religions the
greatest number of followers. Christianity is clear proof of this. It emerged in the final phase of
the Roman Empire and grew after this empire dissolved, during a very unstable period of
history. People needed reassurance to navigate through their lives, and the Christian Church
made itself into the answer. Perfectly understanding the situation, and with a firm hand, the
Church set out to emphasize suffering as having “value” in itself, promising that the next life
would compensate for the misfortunes that people were living through in this “valley of tears”.
It also convinced them that the Church’s representatives on Earth, its priests, bishops and
popes, had the supposed key to this redemptive paradise. That is why they criticized and
demonized pleasure, including sex, which would have left them with no “customers”.
According to this religion, sex should only be used for reproductive purposes.

Religions have promoted the principle of the “value of suffering” for so long, and continue
to do so, that it has now taken on the appearance of a sturdy pillar that supports our lives, when
the reality is that it is as flimsy as jelly and only causes pain.

In addition, the state has almost always been a spirited accomplice of religion in these
activities, as states also need martyrs in the form of soldiers who will protect them and be
ready to die to defend them. They know perfectly well that happy people do not want to go to
war and that war turns people into beasts. Only unhappiness makes people more inclined to
sacrifice themselves for their homeland or religion, when they feel that they have little to lose
in this life.

For this reason, Church and State have been powerful allies throughout history and have
ended up establishing this ridiculous “truth”: if you suffer in this life, you will be compensated
in the next. The key to the prize awaiting you after death is held by the representatives of
churches and states: by churches in the form of supposed “heavens or hells”, and by states in
the form of “eternal remembrance of the heroes” who die defending their country, even though
in reality nobody remembers them afterwards.

These are the reasons why sex and pleasure in general are the targets of vicious attacks by
those who want to control us.

It is obvious that the apparent purpose of a human being, or at least the only one we can see,
is nothing more than to reproduce and perpetuate the species, even though we don’t know what
for. That is why sex is important. That is why women, upon reaching puberty, develop the urge
to beautify themselves to attract men due to their natural programming. And as they age, the
well-known “biological clock” reminds them that they need to procreate, making them anxious
about it. In men, the same programming leads them to try to appear masculine, mature,
powerful, intelligent or strong so that they will be chosen by the female of the species.
However, this behavior is not really anything original, as it also happens throughout the animal
kingdom, since we operate on the same instincts as all other living beings.

On the other hand, there is another problem that is indirectly related to sex that emerged
after the fall of the Roman Empire. This problem is the clumsy and complex social structure
that society has created in recent centuries for the purpose of procreation: marriage. The failure
rate of this institution is so devastating, and almost always painful, that we have to improve
how it is put into practice. Let’s see what history has to say about it.

Rome, which created modern marriage, understood it as a procedure to ensure the survival
of children. In essence, it was a trade agreement unrelated to emotions, describing the goods
that each partner would provide for the survival and care of their children. It was not linked to
sexual or emotional exclusivity in any case. In fact, after signing the agreement, both spouses
continued to have emotional and sexual relationships with other people if they wanted to, and
this did not cause any social scandal.

It was at the fall of the western Roman Empire, with encouragement from the Christian
religion, that it was decided that sex should be confined to marriage with, as I mentioned,
exclusive reproductive rights. We are still suffering from the negative effects of this today, as it
raised multiple barriers to natural sexual activity in the form of taboos. This has led people to
start looking for a natural extension of their sex lives outside of marriage, in secret and
accompanied by feelings of guilt. People fantasize deep within themselves and surreptitiously
experiment if they have the chance, causing conflict between spouses due to the perception of
deceit.

Marriage is now an institution that regulates sexual behavior in our society and usually
begins as a promise of security and procreation; however, it is really just a legal contract. So,
when the relationship between a husband and wife breaks down over time, problems arise from
that contract, as well as a lot of unhappiness.
 These problems arise because, if the initial physical attraction is not supplemented by
friendship, communication, collaboration and respect, the marriage will tend to wear down its
components because of small details. Time will turn the initial passion into boredom, with each
spouse’s dreams and fantasies being locked up in a secret box of desires and in the arms of
routine. Marriages that are based only on the initial heat of sexual or emotional attraction
therefore tend to be short-lived if they are not followed by the creation of a much deeper
relationship, where each contracting partner adds to the life of the other, rather than subtracting
from each other’s possible life experiences.

Sexual activity, in terms of the variables that each person freely decides on, should not be
limited by the institution of marriage for either men or women, because it is a completely
natural act just like eating. Both these acts have two functions: for the former, reproduction and
pleasure, and for the latter, nutrition and pleasure. These functions are not only compatible
with each other, but should be actively sought out as another way of enjoying life, as these are
characteristics that we have been given by nature. We should get down to it, because although
we have to seek out pleasure, pain always finds us in the end.

We have undoubtedly built the pillar of marriage, as the exclusive setting for sexual activity,
using shabby and unsuitable materials that restrict people’s ability for enjoyment in an absurd
way. And I am not talking about the past, but the absolute present. We urgently need to resolve
this problem, which will be done be reclaiming Roman wisdom about these matters.
 PILLAR TWO: LOVE

Love is one of the essential pillars that supports our lives. It is an individual value with
strong collective repercussions.

From a scientific perspective, love is an evolved state of the survival instinct that acts as a
meeting point between people, with reproductive and protective effects. Its manifestations and
the emotions it sometimes unleashes can be extremely powerful.

It is more difficult to provide a consistent definition from an individual perspective, as love

has multiple variables, but all types of love have common elements: generosity, giving,
affection, collaboration, desire for a loved one’s presence, protection, tenderness, possession,
affinity and the desire to call a specific person first and share one’s daily failures or triumphs
with them.

All these building materials of the pillar of love come together in the emotion of spending
time and sharing one’s life with a loved one.

We can also highlight two more unusual and contradictory features of love. It has altruistic
components, but also egoistic ones. We see altruism where a mother gives to her child, or in
the impulse that leads us to protect a loved one or defend a weaker person, even if we don’t
know them.

The egoistic component of love is that we love the image that the other person has of us,
and because it is a feeling that stimulates possessiveness.

The complete absence of love in any of its variants means loneliness. Meanwhile, the
presence of love means emotion and fulfilment. The more we love, the fuller life is, although
this also brings about the risk of possible future suffering due to its eventual loss.

Love is so important for human beings that in every era it has been the most common
subject of artistic creations: novels, poetry, music, films and so on. That is, people’s level of
happiness will increase every time they experience this strong emotion during their lifetimes.

Science tells us that in space, if two metal objects have identical characteristics, they will
inevitably join together when they come into contact with each other. The workings of the
great cosmic program are fascinating, as it seems that everything that is similar is destined to
join together. Could this universal principal be the ultimate explanation for love? We don’t
know, but we can certainly state that love is a magnificent pillar of motivation and strength in
its many variables.
 PILLAR THREE: THE FAMILY, TRIBE AND NATION

Our nature is divided into two clearly separate but interrelated parts: the individual and the
social. We call the latter “society”, and in reality, it is so strong that it can often overcome, or at
least weaken, primary instincts that belong to our individual nature.

The social part emerges from our survival instinct as a way to defend ourselves in a group
and also to perform collective actions more effectively than a single individual could achieve.
This social nature is also the source of our pillar of the family, tribe, nation and state as a way
to manage our coexistence on Earth.

The issue is that life is an individual experience that we live collectively. That is why we
need each other to survive, which in turn creates the need for states to exist to organize our
common existence, further leading to the need for leaders to govern them. Unfortunately,
history shows us that state leaders are more notable for their ambition to acquire the privileges
of power than for their intellectual and ethical ability to wield that power. This is irrefutably
proven by the history of humanity itself, which essentially consists of an unending series of
wars.

In any case, there have been some exceptions. The Roman Empire was the clearest example
of this, even though it also failed to survive. So what explains the fact that even the best human
societies with the most stable and reasonable states also collapse? It is logical to ask ourselves
whether the collective survival instinct fails in such cases.

Let’s take a look, because we will find the answer to this emotional question in the history
of humanity on our planet and especially in one devastating moment: the fall of the
aforementioned Roman Empire.

Carl Sagan said that if Rome had not fallen in the fifth century, we would have reached the
Moon in the tenth. Of course, there’s no way to know if that’s true, but we do know that Rome
absorbed, perfected and expanded on the previous developments of the Egyptians, Phoenicians
and Greeks in the fields of engineering, philosophy, science and leisure, becoming the best
society that humanity has ever created during its centuries of existence, according to expert
historians. This society was governed by a state that did not spend its time building luxurious
renaissance palaces, pyramids or pretentious cathedrals, all architecture that is useless to the
average citizen and is only created to emphasize the glory of those in power. They built things
designed for the use and enjoyment of the common people – something which is unfortunately
exceptional.
 Roman citizens enjoyed several centuries of peace and prosperity. The empire had hundreds
of cities, large and small, spread over three continents, which enjoyed excellent health, plenty
of water of the best quality, and sewage systems that prevented the appearance of epidemics, as
would happen later on. Every town had areas for sport and leisure, and thousands of kilometers
of magnificent highways brought citizens and businesses closer together. Regarding labor, they
practically had one day off for every day of work. This was made possible by a unified, free
and harmonious market. Today, in a poor attempt to imitate the Romans, some ignorant and
populist politicians are trying to reduce the working day in several European countries,
apparently without understanding that by doing so without making this change simultaneously
in every country with a connected economy, those that put this measure into practice would
collapse within a few years because their production costs would rise exponentially, to the
benefit of those that did not. The first symptoms of this debacle would be companies starting to
leave the country to try to survive, as well as an increase in inflation, unemployment rates and
poverty. And all this would be caused by a few politicians making a decision while only
thinking about the votes they could win with this idiotic strategy, not about the serious
repercussions it would have for the people. In fact, Rome was the most playful and relaxed
society that ever existed in human history, due to its social, legal and market unity, its
organizational capacity and, in particular, its political sanity.

In contrast to the statements of ignorant authors and film-makers, as well as certain

religions, fights to the death in circuses were prohibited by law from the start of the empire and
were severely punished. Furthermore, from this period, slaves could not be mistreated (let
alone killed) and could easily be released. In fact, they basically became the equivalent of
domestic servants in our time. Slaves would suffer much worse treatment in later centuries,
including in North America in the 19th century. They did not work in mines or build roads or
construction projects in the Roman Empire, either. Like now, those works were carried out by
highly qualified professionals and specialized workers using very sophisticated machines and
tools.

We know that there were three servile wars—slave revolts—during the history of Rome,
which took place during its pre-empire republican era and included the War of Spartacus.
Although the empire lasted for hundreds of years, it had no problems of this kind, nor any
racial or religious uprisings.

Moreover, Rome (which is the direct ancestor of the entire western world), through Julius
Caesar, created the current state system, the modern calendar, the media and, in particular, the
greatest social advance in human history: equal rights. That is, equal laws for men and women,
the governors and the governed.

Our ancestors enjoyed all this for several centuries, achieving a level of prosperity that we
can barely equal in the most advanced societies in the present day, even though they didn’t
have the internet.
 So the key question is still: Why did such a perfect and advanced society collapse?

To understand this phenomenon correctly, we should first give a quick summary of human
development from the earliest era to the fall of the western Roman Empire.

It is commonly accepted that humans first appeared in the continent of Africa. Whether that
is true or not, it is not that relevant to our current analysis. What we do know for sure is that
people, as social animals, were grouped into tribes, usually consisting of members of a single
family. Over time, as these tribes increased in number, they were subdivided for different
reasons, with one part setting off to look for territory to occupy, searching for food and mild
weather.

This continued for thousands of years until most of the tribes were far apart from each other.
They therefore ended up developing their own languages, different religions and, ultimately,
customs and social models that differed from their common origins.

However, there is one part of our planet that has a special, unique characteristic that does
not exist anywhere else. I am referring to the Mediterranean Sea. It is large enough for the
tribes to have initially settled on its shores without coming into contact with each other, but
small enough for them to have formed relationships once they started to grow. Tribes lived on
its shores for centuries, looking for and finding food and mild weather, as this sea is in the
planet’s temperate zone.

Although these tribes were isolated from each other at first, they began to affect each other
as they grew, as they were reasonably close together. This did not happen in America, for
example, where civilizations tried to settle in geographically distant areas for their own safety,
becoming highly inbred. At these distances, they did not share their lives and also failed to
share knowledge, which disappeared with the collapse of each civilization. The same
phenomenon took place in Africa and parts of Asia.

But in the Mediterranean, with its special characteristics, things were different. The tribes
that had reached its shores ended up contacting each other, and of course, this contact was not
always friendly – quite the opposite, in fact. However, it did provide an essential element for
their subsequent development that did not exist in other parts of the world: they exchanged
knowledge, good or bad, causing the most dynamic cultures on Earth to be born and grow in
this part of the planet.

Looking at a map of the Mediterranean Sea, we can see that its shores gave rise to the
Assyrian, Persian, Egyptian, Cretan, Greek, Phoenician and Roman cultures, among others, as
well as the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions. Excepting the latter, these are all vital parts
of what we now call western culture, the most successful culture in all of human history. In
fact, it can be seen that Asian and African people are more likely to take on western cultural
habits than for this to happen in the opposite direction. Law, philosophy, government and the
state system, the calendar, music, fashion and the most successful sports and shows came from
western countries and are now part of social life on other continents and in their societies.
Ultimately, western people do not wear kimonos, but Asian people do wear jackets, trousers
and miniskirts. And this culture was not imposed by force. It is simply and happily accepted by
those who receive it, who make it their own.

As I said, various civilizations were created on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. But the
last of these, Rome, was so powerful that, after absorbing its predecessors, it perfected them
and created its own civilization, which actually underpins all of western culture, as even the
others primarily reached us through Rome.

Which brings us back to the key question: If it was so advanced, why did it disappear?

The answer lies in history and human nature and is closely related to the survival instinct.

The Roman Empire, based on the Lex Iulia Municipalis of Julius Caesar, became a kind of
United States. This happened because Caesar understood that his country could not survive
based on the military occupation and looting of territory, with war as the major national
business, as the Roman republic had been doing until then, primarily to benefit the aristocrats
who controlled the political power of the Senate. That is why he started looking for and
creating secure borders, so that Rome could protect its citizens from constant raids by the
Gauls and Germans. After that, he started a civil war that destroyed the aristocracy. He then
established the legal structure of a modern state that all nations have copied ever since, with a
few small changes. The Senate and the Assemblies were the parliamentary institutions. The
executive power was represented by the emperor, who appointed his collaborators or ministers.
Provinces were ruled by provincial governors, and cities were run by councilors. And from
then on, the main duty of its leaders and public officials was to promote the well-being of the
citizens of both Rome and its conquered territories, which were granted Roman citizenship,
something that was highly valued. They built roads to join them, as well as providing
healthcare, schools, security, leisure, etc. Octavian, Caesar’s successor, continued this policy
and thus created the Roman Empire.

In fact, by applying the aforementioned law, the city of Rome became the political capital of
the empire, like Washington in the United States today. Spanish, French, Algerian, Belgian,
Italian, British, Greek, Portuguese, Tunisian, Romanian and Syrian citizens felt just as Roman
as those who lived in the capital city of Rome, and all enjoyed similar levels of prosperity.
Over those centuries of peace and fortune, each province and territory provided emperors for
the Roman state.

They achieved such prosperity that neighboring kingdoms persistently asked to join the
empire, given the differences in their standards of living and well-being, like we see with the
European Community today. However, the successive Roman governments did not accept
them. This gave rise to increasingly high immigration, particularly from northern and eastern
Europe. As always, over the centuries this led to immigrants taking the jobs that Roman
citizens did not want, especially positions in the legions, which essentially worked in border
protection.

Let’s keep looking at history to get an accurate idea of what that meant. In the middle of the
fifth century, in 451, Roman legions defeated Attila and the Huns in the Catalaunian Plains. So
far, so normal. The relevant fact is that only ten percent of the troops were Roman citizens,
while the rest were Germans from various tribes who made up the legions. Roman citizens had
not experienced war for centuries and lived so well that they would never consider enlisting in
the army.

Only a few years after that battle, and despite having won it, Rome collapsed.

Today, all experts agree that the fall of the Roman Empire was not caused by a barbarian
invasion as described in films, novels and even some history books. There was no such
invasion, because the barbarians were already there, doing the jobs that the Romans didn’t
want to do, including fighting in the legions.

So what did destroy it?

The answer lies in human nature. So many centuries of peace and well-being weakened the
collective survival instinct of the Roman citizens who, not having experienced any danger for
generations, had lost the awareness and caution that usually awakens that instinct.

In that society, most people were sure that Rome was eternal and that everything would stay
the same forever, because no living generation remembered any times of stress or risk that had
affected their families’ safety and stability within the empire. The direct result of this
weakening of the survival instinct was that neither the Roman citizens nor their public
authorities, which ultimately had the same historical background and mentality, were used to
having to fight to preserve their society. This meant that its central authority grew weaker, as
the state did not seem to be as necessary, and local powers began to emerge, creating various
fiefdoms that ended up being controlled by the most powerful people in each region. These
leaders immediately began to quarrel with each other. Today, certain adventurous and ignorant
politicians, particularly in Europe, are still trying to create different fiefdoms, with various
cultural justifications.

This marked the beginning of the devastating Middle Ages, which in many ways we have
not yet left. With it, a large part of Rome’s intellectual, material and scientific legacy
disappeared, leaving misery, war, epidemics and religious fanaticism to emerge in its place.

The fall of the Roman Empire was probably the greatest social catastrophe in human
history, even though much of it still lives on today in our language, law, the state and
Christianity, which has lasted until now precisely because it was created and promoted by the
empire in its final stages.
 PILLAR FOUR: THE NEED TO POSSESS AND THE ECONOMY

The need to possess is a part of human nature that emerges from the most powerful human
instinct: the survival instinct. That is the reason for the failure of every political philosophy
that does not take this human characteristic into account and thus fails to compensate people
for their initiative and individual achievements, as in communism.

This need to possess leads us to buy food, housing, clothes and a variety of goods, where
the more developed a society is, the more range and variety it has, particularly once we get
past a simple subsistence economy. This need to own something in order to survive leads to the
phenomenon of economics, which is a natural outcome whenever someone needs something
that they do not have, as they will always find someone else who can give it to them.

Let’s talk about that.

As I have said in several articles, there are two subjects that should be taught in schools to
every child in the world, before they reach puberty. One is the mastery of spoken language and
the other is economics, as both will be essential for the future course of their lives and
constitute important pillars of our individual and collective existence.

A high level of skill in using words opens many doors, as it facilitates communication with
other people by allowing us to accurately express our desires, thoughts and emotions. Words
unite us. I think almost everyone would agree with this idea.

However, I’m sure there is less consensus in the case of economics. I suspect that some of
you are frowning, wondering whether to keep reading something so boring, as you think of this
as a subject for experts that you will never understand.

That is a false impression. Economics is very easy to understand, and this knowledge is
extremely useful, as all life from birth to death—and even after—is affected by the economy.

For example, social stability, which is so important for the well-being of every life, is based
on a strong and prosperous economy. In fact, when governments (or other entities such as the
financial sector) take foolish actions in this area, they end up ruining the entire country and the
prosperity of its citizens, even if the consequences of this foolishness sometimes take years to
appear.
 Understanding economics is essential, because it helps us to make better personal decisions.
It makes it easier to properly buy a house or a car; it helps us make decisions on whether to
take out a loan; it will be very useful if we want to start a business. And that knowledge can
also tell us whether the politicians we plan to vote for are making realistic promises or just
spouting populist nonsense that will end up undermining society and our family’s well-being.

Mastering this subject will lead to a broad understanding of the world we live in, as its
principles are identical in every country, while those who navigate through life in ignorance of
it are at greater risk of running aground.

Perhaps the first question that we need to answer is: if it’s so important, why is it not taught
in schools? The answer is very simple. It’s because nobody, particularly not politicians, has the
slightest interest in you knowing anything about this subject. They prefer to saturate your
education with classes on history that has been more or less distorted according to the interests
of the government at the time; on chemistry or maths, which will usually be utterly irrelevant
to your life, except for the basic rules; and other classes that make no attempt to teach useful
knowledge, only the appearance of knowledge.

Our rulers understand that knowledge of the economy is dangerous to those in power,
because people could become more demanding if they had a better understanding of the
consequences of various political decisions and of how politicians use the money taken from
them as tax payments. That is why they are not interested in having you learn much about it,
not to mention the fact that they don’t know much either, as not even the universities that teach
this subject do so effectively. They usually teach the history and jargon of each sector of the
economy: the financial, industrial and commercial sectors, etc. Ultimately, they teach the
characteristics of the various sectors, but neglect a global understanding of the economic
phenomenon.

We usually assume that someone who understands the financial sector, for example, also
understands economics. That is a mistake. All they usually know about this subject is how to
navigate through that specific part of the economy and the characteristics of that specific
sector, but not how it relates to economics as a whole. However, we tend to assume that they
are experts, because we hear them throw around expressions using financial terms that we
don’t understand, even though they probably don’t know any more about economics than the
rest of us.

On the other hand, how do they keep people from being interested in this subject? By giving
it a false aura of complexity—you will see this falseness immediately—and turning it into a
boring, apparently specialized subject.

Let’s get to the point, without further ado.

 I’ll begin by defining what economics is. It is nothing more than the science of studying
production activities and exchanges of goods and services, with the aim of meeting people’s
needs or desires of any kind.

It has always existed. Cavemen exchanged any extra goods with their neighboring tribes, in
return for other things that they needed. This exchange was their form of trade and economics
in an era when money had not yet been invented, because exchange was the only possible
process. However, it was a very limited system that is completely useless in the present day,
when there are more than seven billion people living on the planet.

Money was invented more than three thousand years ago. Economic concepts have been
developing ever since, up to the present day. Let’s look at how things stand now.

After the invention of money, various specialized economic sectors were developed little by
little: goods manufacturing, transport, storage, sales and, in some cases, funding. At the same
time, these entities exist alongside the states (which constitute another economic sector in
themselves), which retain a percentage of this movement of goods and services in the form of
taxes. These sectors are all interdependent, and together they form the economy.

As I said, this is set in motion whenever anyone requests a good or services, because that
creates a natural demand. That’s where everything begins.

To make it easier to understand, I have written this simple and universally applicable
formula, which explains and governs all the rules of economics. The formula is:

Demand → production + trade → work.

And by extension: work → + demand + production + trade → + work.

In reality, it forms an infinite loop.

In contrast, the absence of a natural demand (the things that people want to buy) places a
negative sign before the other factors, leading to unemployment and poverty. Ultimately, when
someone asks for something (demand), someone else responds by producing it and selling it to
them, so they have to create employment to be able to produce what was asked for. The
workers who were employed to meet that demand, and earned the corresponding salaries, will
also need and want goods that will in turn be provided by other people, and so on.

But demand is reduced for any reason, unemployment and poverty will begin to appear.
This explains the formula, which summarizes all of the principles that govern the economy. It
also shows us the reasons behind great economic successes and, likewise, for all major
economic crises over time.
 As the best way to explain this is to use real examples, let’s take a look at some.

The reason for the economic and therefore social collapse of Africa is that there is almost no
organized demand beyond what is needed for mere survival. There is therefore almost no
production, trade or work.

The main reason for the collapse of the USSR was that the government decided what should
be manufactured and purchased, with private companies being prohibited by law, and so its
economy did not follow the natural demands of its citizens. It followed the demands created
and manipulated by the soviet rulers, ending up as a spectacular failure, as the state was
producing tanks and missiles in its factories when the people (naturally) wanted milk, bread,
clothes and housing. That is, production was not harmonized with demand. And so this state
collapsed, after much suffering among its citizens. Today, North Korea and other countries are
doing exactly the same thing, and that’s where they are heading.

China has learned from the resounding failure of the Soviet Union and is strictly enforcing
the formula I gave above. Through devoted application of the formula, it has now become the
second strongest power in the world, which is curious, as it is a communist dictatorship that is
implementing capitalism.

Let’s continue. The secret behind the economic success of the United States is the vigor and
regularity of its natural, organized demand, which produced and is maintaining a broad middle-
class society. This in turn is creating much of the demand that half of the world lives off.

As we can see from these real cases, the negative results were due to changes in the terms of
the formula via manipulation or a lack of demand. On the other hand, we can see that the
positive results came from precise application of the formula.

At this point, you may be asking yourself: What does all this have to do with the pillars we
were talking about? Well, a lot, because economics is the organizing procedure that human
society has created to meet our need to possess the goods that will ensure our survival. Without
it, it would be almost impossible for us to survive with the current number of people living on
Earth. The possibilities for more or less individual prosperity are directly related to our
country’s economic conditions.
 PILLAR FIVE: VIOLENCE

You may frown, but that won’t stop me from saying that violence is an intrinsic part of
human nature and thus another of its pillars.

Our reasons for using violence are essentially the same as those of animals that mark their
territory and attack anyone else who ventures into it. These reactions are yet another
manifestation of the survival instinct.

This same instinct leads people to mark territory to protect their hunting or planting grounds
and call them a nation. Next, they take a flag as their symbol, then kill and die for it.

Violence, in the form of war, has always been the cause of the rise and fall of empires and
societies throughout history, and even in our time. Victories against Carthage in the Punic Wars
turned the Roman republic into the greatest power of its age. The Napoleonic Wars ended the
Spanish Empire and enshrined the United Kingdom as the greatest power. World War One
ended the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, starting the North American era but
sharing it with the British. And World War Two ended the British Empire and confirmed the
United States as the greatest world power, together with the Soviet Union.

Before I continue, let me tell you a short personal story. Years ago, a friend showed me a
document rolled up in a tube. He spread it out on a table, a couple of meters long, and
explained that this document listed the dates of all the wars humanity has waged in all of
known history. It covered battles from Nebuchadnezzar and the Egyptians to the current wars
in the Middle East. The number of dates and the continuity of war, almost without pause, was
shocking.

Suddenly, something caught my eye. There was an empty period with no dates listed, which
made me curious, considering that the rest was a continuous and uninterrupted succession of
dates of battles.

I asked what that gap meant. He casually answered, as if it were obvious, that it
corresponded to the era of the Roman Empire, when there were barely any wars. That image
has always stayed in my mind, and that was when I first developed my curiosity and passion
for human history, wanting to find out how such a violent animal as mankind had renounced
that violence for a specific period in its history.
 After studying it in depth, I came to understand that the “Pax Romana” (that period with no
battles shown in my friend’s document) was the product of the absence of nations, with people
who did not long for their lives before Rome, as the empire had considerably improved their
living conditions through prosperity and security. That is, they became Roman voluntarily, not
because the presence of legions forced them to do so. Ultimately, peace was born from unity.

However, when Rome fell, multiple nations emerged from local potentates’ ambitions of
power, creating small states and kingdoms with their respective armies, which have not
stopped fighting among each other until today, for one reason or another. That marked the
beginning of the sad phase we call the Middle Ages, from which we in the 21st century have
not yet emerged, as new nations are still being created by “local feudal lords” who are seeking
the global limelight and not their citizens’ best interests.

As I was saying, this emergence of countries brought us back into a state of continuous war,
as in the tribal era, which has grown worse over the years with the advance of science. In the
tribal era, wars were ended with a few hundred dead. Two thousand years ago, thousands died
in each battle, and the “civilized” 20th century saw tens of millions of people killed. In
collegiate terms, we could cynically state that humanity is “progressing adequately”. So, in the
next step, thanks to this “progress” and developments in military technology, we will be able to
count the dead and injured in future wars by the hundreds of millions, if we don’t fix things
before that.

In summary, we must accept that war is a constant throughout history because it is related to
human nature and the human survival instinct. But if our intelligence is not enough to control
it, the weapons of mass destruction that technology has been creating will fall into the hands of
some madman who could wipe us out, or at least cause a massive impact on our levels of
stability and fortune.

This clearly demonstrates the need for a global political power to control those weapons
and, using an agreed legal framework, to create common rules for global coexistence,
respecting the characteristics of each region without violating certain basic general principles.
That is, we must do what Julius Caesar did with Rome and what Octavian continued, enabling
a peaceful and prosperous coexistence that lasted for centuries.

People are strange animals, as they combine their strong individual impulses with collective
ones in contradictory ways. As individuals, they usually only use violence as a defensive tool
in the event of aggression against themselves or a loved one. They generally avoid collective
dangers if they are not emotionally involved in them. On the other hand, it is the social part of
human nature that allows states and religions to use manipulation to invest human society with
collective emotions that lead individuals to sacrifice themselves in wars, dazzling them with
false values like Victory, Glory, Honor, Heroism, Paradise and so on.
 Violence is such a powerful part of our nature that, despite the efforts of government
leaders, teachers and journalists to convince us otherwise, it is the foundation of any political
legitimacy and thus the origin of nations and their corresponding states. Let’s look at a few
examples; these are only illustrative, but they apply to all cases.

The United States became the nation it is today through two wars that left hundreds of
thousands dead: the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Its origin and legitimacy are based
on those victories.

The Soviet Union emerged from a civil war between the whites and the reds, although it
was later disguised by the fiction of the October Revolution; in reality, this was no more than a
coup d’état by a political party that had actually lost the elections to the Duma.

Modern-day China was born from a civil war between communists and nationalists.

European countries have risen and fallen based on war for hundreds of years. And so on.

In all cases, it is the victors who have ended up in power, and the first thing they do with
that power is try to make everyone forget their violent origins and establish their legitimacy
based on the “unambiguous will of the people” or on religion. To achieve this, they
shamelessly distort history through the education system and the media.

This all leads to the conclusion that power always comes from violence in every human
society, and if we want to understand ourselves as we really are—and not as we say or wish we
were—we have to accept this reality. Once we accept it, we can start looking for the most
effective possible solution for avoiding the negative aspects of this human characteristic.

To make progress towards this goal, the first thing we need to do is make states serve their
citizens and not the other way around, which is more common. States become extremely
harmful when they don’t consider this obligation, by failing to abide by the reason for their
existence, which is nothing but promoting the well-being of the people. To do that, they have
to promote a stable social framework without conflict.

Throughout our history, political and religious leaders have encouraged and participated in
wars that, during the 20th century alone, caused the early deaths of more than one hundred
million people. Since the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe has usually been at the epicenter of
these abominations. We have to be able to evolve sufficiently as individuals and as a society to
keep politicians from being able to declare wars. This is the minimum amount of evolution that
we should require of ourselves as human beings after tens of millions of years on Earth.

Professional politicians, journalists, film-makers, historians and novelists are the conduits
who turn wars into a tolerable game through their frivolous depictions of them as battles
between good and evil, between brave nobles and cowardly villains or between strategic
geniuses and ambitious idiots. Of course, the identities of the good and evil sides depend on
who is telling the story.

It is indecent to use words and values like Glory, Courage, Honor and Sacrifice when it
comes to war. People who are sent to war should know that their enemy is not the opposing
army, but those who sent them to the human abattoir that war really is. That is why they should
rise against their own leaders and the journalists who support them, not against other citizens
who are really in the same situation as them, even though they are from another country.

It is clear that the only way to avoid the enormous risks currently presented by violence in
the form of war, if we want to learn from history, is to head rapidly towards some kind of
union of all the countries on Earth. If we cannot take this essential step in our evolution, it will
not be long before human society suffers irreparable damage, as science has created destructive
technology that is only becoming more difficult for us to control.

In summary, violence is a pillar that has supported and is supporting our society, but it is a
pillar of jelly, putting us at greater individual and collective risk every day and always causing
deep misery and anxiety.
 PILLAR SIX: DEATH

I want to start by saying that birth is not the beginning of everything; it is only the
continuation. And when we die, that is not the end of anything; it is only a new start.

Let me explain.

If we look carefully, we will see that everything in the universe is in motion. Nothing
remains static. Stillness does not exist. We ourselves as living beings are examples of this, as
our bodies are always changing. Every day, we are different from the day before. Small
physical changes, which are gigantic on a microscopic level, mean that today’s body is
different from yesterday’s. That is, we are also in constant motion.

We know that we will take on different forms in our lives, all very different from each other,
which we call stages: childhood, adolescence and mature adulthood. But despite knowing that
they exist, we cannot sense the tiny daily changes that make these different stages possible, just
as we cannot feel that we are travelling at more than one hundred thousand kilometers an hour
around the sun. So, it is all the more impossible for us to know what we were before we were
born or what we will be after we die.

On the other hand, we have learned through nanotechnology that the smallest particles that
make up our bodies are identical to the particles that make up the stars, a stone or a tree. We
also know that these particles are not destroyed, only organized and transformed into new
materials. The ones that currently make up any person’s body were previously part of
something else and will be part of yet another thing in future, and so on ad infinitum. And in
future, when our planet has disappeared, each of our current particles will recombine and
continue to exist, forming part of some element of the cosmos.

For this reason, and to be accurate, we can conclude that what we call death is nothing but a
property of what we know as life. That is, only that which is born dies. This is obvious. But
even if it doesn’t seem that way to us, death really only means the end of the combination of
conscious matter that we are now, before we become new types of matter later on. We become
human beings when we are born, and after death we become dust that is scattered throughout
the universe, being reborn in other forms in a continuous exchange of matter and energy.

However, our fear of death is logical, as it is nothing more than yet another manifestation of
the survival instinct and a characteristic associated with the animal kingdom (and possibly the
plant kingdom) in our attempt to ensure the continued existence of the species. Despite this, as
we discussed, death is only the end of this stage that we call life and the beginning of another
in an infinite cycle, even if we are not consciously aware of it.

That fear is so important in our culture that it is a huge part of it in the form of religion,
architecture, literature, etc., with a huge influence on every human civilization.

In fact, the individual pain caused by death is not loneliness, as that is only a physical state.
The painful aspect is the empty space left by the absence of someone who used to fill it.

In summary: birth, life and death are only transformations of the same cosmos that we are
part of. After death, our current molecular structure will transform and fuse with other
elements.
 PILLAR SEVEN: RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Since the dawn of time, people have wanted to know who they are and what their role in the
universe is.

Each religion tries to answer these questions according to its own conventions, but almost
always involving one common factor: God. This is usually defined, among other things, as the
creator of everything that exists. If we think about this answer properly, we will see that it isn’t
logical; it is just a good intellectual refuge to try to reduce the frustration we feel due to our
own ignorance.

Who created everything that exists? What are we doing here? What is death? Is there
anything after it? It is precisely the need to answer these questions that led humanity to create
God.

Each religion, with a greater or lesser dose of fantasy, then describes one or another kind of
God, as well as the place we will supposedly go to depending on how well we behave in life.
But we must acknowledge that priests and imams have had a great ability to convince millions
of people that they have exclusive control over entry into the posthumous paradise that they
promise or into hell, where we will suffer for eternity. This has given them a lot of power on
Earth.

On the other hand, religions clearly provide positive aspects to humanity, particularly when
they provide reassurance during moments of deep individual misfortune, because people are
very vulnerable at those times and need to cling onto something, even if they’re only clutching
at straws. Religions make themselves into those straws.

However, it is also true that religions have equally caused, and continue to cause,
immeasurable pain by fanaticizing their followers and encouraging them towards self-sacrifice
or war.

Nevertheless, it seems that science has not found any better answers to the questions we
asked above related to the big questions about our existence. They may be even further than
religions from reaching a believable answer. At least when religions speak of reincarnation or
transcending the human form after death, they may be closer to reality than the scientists.
 Let’s take a look. We know that we live in a completely unfathomable universe and that
every day, the new devices we invent show us incomprehensible phenomena that seem to
demonstrate that we know less and less about the world we live in, as every scientific theory
that we develop to explain them ends up failing sooner or later and has to be replaced with
another one.

In fact, whenever we stare in wonder at the universe or the quantum world, a thousand
questions leap to our limited but curious minds. For example: How can intelligent beings exist
without another superior intelligence having created them? Can we accept that combinations of
elemental particles formed by random chance have created everything that exists?

We sense that something or someone must have combined those elements in order for
anything to exist. It is this “something or someone” that religions call God and that science,
which also has no answer, calls the universe. Meanwhile, the purpose of science is to create
theories that try to explain whatever we observe but do not understand.

As a small detour, as a kind of experiment and demonstration of what we are discussing,

let’s come up with a theory of our own about certain disconcerting phenomena that physicists
have observed in the quantum world. Let’s pretend we are scientists working in a laboratory of
ideas.

Physicists have proved, using recently invented, sophisticated and powerful microscopes,
that certain elemental particles move backwards and forwards through time, while others seem
to exist only when we look at them through those microscopes. These phenomena are real, and
scientists are racking their brains to find a reasonable explanation for these bizarre behaviors of
particles in the quantum world. It suggests that time is just an illusion of our minds and that,
based on those observations, we can deduce that EVERYTHING in the universe could be
happening at the same time. That is, the past, the present and the future could be nothing more
than a delusion of our brains, as everything really happens simultaneously.

So, after meditating on these phenomena that occur in nature, which we are part of, let’s
create a theory that tries to explain these events in a way that is more understandable to our
intelligence. We’ll call it the “Theory of the Book”. Let’s look at what it says.

You are reading a book and you are on page 50. This is your present, which comes into
being when you start reading that page, i.e. when you observe it. However, the words written
on the pages before (the past) and after (the future) are also still present in that book, even
though they only come to life when you interact with them by looking at and reading them.

This theory can be used as an illustration, within the reach of our experiences and minds, to
explain the strange observations from quantum physics that we discussed earlier, in the sense
that everything may exist at the same time (like in the book) but that you perceive different
realities depending on which universe or page you are looking at.
 This is exactly how science acts, as we have just done, when faced with anything that it
doesn’t understand. It creates theories, which are inevitably limited by our intellectual capacity.
Each theory is more or less successful as it is accepted by more or fewer scientists, which does
not mean that it is true. We should remember, for example, that when Einstein published his
famous theory of relativity, most physicists said that it was a very imaginative but unrealistic
story. Meanwhile, it is widely accepted today, despite the fact that it has been proven not to
work in the quantum world.

In any case, I’m sure you would agree that everything is too complicated for our
intelligence to understand it.

However, through our mental abilities and our curiosity, we continue to look for an
explanation of the universe and of our meaning within it, by asking new questions.

Could the world we know, including ourselves, be a tiny part of a much larger living being,
with the same proportional relationship as between an atom and our bodies? That is, are we
part of another living being that we are inside of, which we call the universe?

I don’t think this idea is as ridiculous as it appears at first glance. If someone with the
ability to observe existed inside an atom in your body, their view of the world around them
would be very similar to the human view of the cosmos. They would see bodies spinning
around them like stars (electrons) with insurmountable distances between them. And just like
us, they would never be aware that they were inside another being. Could this theory be
correct? We have no way of knowing.

On the other hand, we should also ask: Is everything that exists just a huge piece of
software with an infinite number of programs, each with its own characteristics but all
interconnected with each other?

The idea of the computer program is very real, as if you look, you will see that everything
clearly seems to follow some pre-existing programming. For example, if we combine two
hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom, they become liquid water and not anything else; that’s
programming. If we cool that same water to zero degrees centigrade, it becomes solid matter;
that’s programming. Sperm and ova meet up and achieve their goals with no prior learning,
and the same holds for almost all the functions that plants and animals carry out in order to
survive; that’s programming. Even the order of the universe itself seems to follow a complex
and vast computer program.

If this theory were correct, the next question would be: Who or what created it?

Any of these explanations or theories that we have suggested in the form of questions could
be possible, or perhaps there are other theories that we haven’t even imagined. In any case, it is
clear that the answers are not within our reach.
 This reminds me of an old story that I’m sure you already know, which summarizes this
issue well. Once upon a time, Saint Augustine was walking along a beach. He saw a child
playing in the sand. When he looked more closely, he saw that the child was running to the sea,
filling his bucket with water, then going back to empty the bucket into a hole. The child kept
doing this a few times until Saint Augustine, filled with curiosity, approached him and asked:
“What are you doing, child?” The child replied: “I’m taking all the water out of the sea, and
I’m going to put it in this hole”. Saint Augustine exclaimed: “But that’s impossible!” and the
child replied: “It’s more impossible to do what you are trying to do: trying to understand the
mystery of God with your tiny mind”.

Perhaps this could apply to our reality just by replacing “God” with “the universe”, as we
are certainly incapable of understanding most of the phenomena that we observe in the
quantum world and in the cosmos, both of which we are part of.
 END OF THE ROAD

Here, at the end of this journey to explore life, it’s time to present the results we’ve found.

Getting straight to the point, the first thing we can conclude, without using any flowery
phrases, is that it is NOT possible for anyone to know their purpose in life. However, the
amazing and extraordinarily sublime thing for us is that the reasons why we cannot know the
meaning of our existence are exactly the things that give it meaning.

Let’s take a look. We are important insofar as we are the universe, which is irrefutable. This
makes us extremely valuable, as we are part something extraordinary, even if we cannot
understand it. None of the structures that our particles form part of will remember what
happened to them before. But during our current lives as humans, is there any greater meaning
than the certainty that we are the universe, and as eternal as the universe?

Of course, it would only be possible to understand the exact purpose of our existence if we
knew the purpose of the universe. This is not within the reach of humanity, and we have to
accept that, because it is not built on the scale of our imagination, let alone that of our
intelligence.

We can say that nothing that exists appears at random or due to incoherent chance
combinations of elemental particles. That is impossible, because everything would be in chaos,
and the universe would never have been able to flourish. Therefore, we can determine that
there is an Intelligence, of which we are a tiny part, that we cannot perceive or understand due
to its size. This is not a theory. It is a fact proven by a thousand signs, signals and partial
observations of everything we see in the macro and micro universe. This Intelligence is what
religions call God, divining its existence through pure intuition, while science does not know
what to call it because this discipline has too many limitations. However, the partial
phenomena that science has observed lead to this final conclusion. Understanding the nature of
this creator, God or whatever it might be is another matter entirely. In any case, it is not
achievable using our senses or brains.

On the other hand, we have set out together on this journey to try to understand ourselves,
which is essential in order to optimize our life experience. We have seen that there are seven
pillars that emerge from our survival instinct, which we urgently need to manage better.
 Let’s begin with the obvious conclusions. There is no heaven or hell after what we call
death. Those are inventions of the minorities who want to control everyone else. What we call
death is not the end, only another beginning. The universe creates new structures and materials
over and over, and the particles that make up our body today will later form part of other
elements. Therefore, we will not disappear, only transform into different forms, although these
differences mean that there is no continuity of memory between them.

We have also been able to confirm that the answer to the meaning of our lives has always
been there. The great obstacle to finding that answer has been the huge number of distorted
concepts that hide it from us like layers of fog. These layers of fog have been wrapped around
our minds by philosophy, religion, science and our own stupidity in perceiving space as
something to conquer, as if it were separate from ourselves. Each of these disciplines has been
careful to promote its own “truth”, but everything they offer is partial and self-interested. Some
of them seek power (philosophy and religions). Others seek money from public budgets
(science). Over the centuries, these disciplines have been used as tools to create most of the
pillars of jelly that humanity is suffering from. So, clearly, what we can do during our
conscious lives is improve the things we can change with our own hands; the things that
depend on us, because we are the ones who created them. That is, those pillars of jelly. Let’s do
it.

To do so, we have to start by promoting a new culture of citizenship, i.e. by changing our
individual and social mentality. This new mentality must aim for people to demand from their
politicians that states should serve their citizens and not the other way around; that
governments should not have the power to declare war under any circumstances; that our
leaders be evaluated based on the economic and social prosperity they can provide for us,
demanding that they promote unity between social groups rather than strengthening the things
that divide us, as we always have more similarities than differences. These new citizens should
demand that public authorities not use tax money for military research, but rather for scientific
and technological exploration with the sole aim of improving our conscious lives, eliminating
hunger, illness and pain. Only a new type of person, with a new mentality far removed from
the anachronistic political philosophies of the left and right, can start to make this progress for
their own good.

On the individual level, these new citizens must be able to enjoy, without complexes (which
should be their aim in life), the gifts they have received from their natural programming: love,
friendship, sex, pleasure in food and enjoyment of beauty, of the imagination, of artistic
creations, of a sunset or a good conversation.

To achieve this, we must try to spend less time as spectators of our own lives and more as
their protagonists. The society we have created encourages its citizens to become simple
spectators. This is not an innocent act. Spectators are easier to manipulate than those who try to
take control of their own lives. Politicians, professors, journalists, historians, religious leaders,
novelists and film-makers are usually the necessary accomplices to this manipulation that
politics and religion have always carried out. They are the ones who built our pillars of jelly.
 Now let’s recall, in brief, what we have seen in this regard along the path that brought us
here.

We were created as sexual beings, but the way we handle this part of our nature is
grotesque. For example, note that we have no qualms about letting children watch war films or
westerns where people kill and die. On the other hand, the same film would be classified as
unsuitable for minors if a naked human body appeared. I’m sure you will agree that this is
worse than stupid; it’s ridiculous.

Sex was originally a sturdy pillar, but over time, particularly due to the influence of
Christianity, it has become a pillar of jelly due to the numerous frustrations and insecurities it
creates. This issue is simple to resolve. We just have to reclaim the Roman logic in this regard,
as we should also reclaim their understanding of the institution of marriage. Marriage should
logically exist as a legal means to provide stability for children, who also, just like the rest of
us, did not ask to be born. Their well-being is therefore the responsibility of their parents, as
they exist because of their parents’ decisions.

Unlike sex, LOVE in its varied forms is a very sturdy pillar, as people’s level of happiness
increases the more they experience this powerful emotion throughout their lifetimes.

Another obvious pillar of jelly, as we saw in the corresponding section, is the current system
for our coexistence on Earth. We are organized into more than two hundred countries, which
creates significant risks for humanity due to the current technologies available for war. The
only way to eliminate these huge risks, as we also discussed, is to head towards a United States
of Earth. What is the point of travelling through space on our beautiful blue planet if we do so
while dividing it into tiny plots of land that are in conflict with each other?

It is politicians who lead us to war, with journalists as their necessary accomplices, while
the media and weapons manufacturers see war as big business. The media are looking for
audiences, which they find using huge scandals and dramas. And there is no greater drama
than war.

Also, as we saw in the relevant section, religion and science are of great interest. They
sometimes act as sturdy pillars, and at other times—too often—as pillars of jelly. However, it
is clear that in some sense the two complement each other and that we need them, since it is
very natural that when science has no good answer to people’s essential concerns, we take
refuge in religious FAITH, as religions are only limited by the imagination for creating their
“truths”. In contrast, science has to demonstrate its truths empirically, which is usually very
difficult and sometimes impossible.

We have also been able to understand that the purpose of our lives is connected to the
purpose of the universe we are part of. Even though we don’t know what that is, it is
reasonable to think that it must be wonderful, worthy of its enormity and amazing complexity.
As such, during the stage we call life, we should focus on enjoying the gifts that nature has
given us, strengthening the sturdy pillars that raise us above ourselves, but trying to remove or
change the pillars of jelly that we have built, as they only lead us to pain and fragility.

In conclusion, the meaning of life is not something we can find, but something we create
every day based on the possibilities of our intellects, experiencing friendship, love and
discoveries, teaching others what we know, learning to coexist and, ultimately, trying to be as
happy as possible. One day we will all leave for the stars, which science says is where we
came from. But in the meantime, let’s make our small world into a better place.

THE END

Víctor Saltero