Navel Gazing on Humanity – Anthropomorphic Narcissism

Aweh fellow Ruminants & Groupies in day 381 of Re-Modified Lock Down Now Level 1.

Period as a semi-retired pensioner: 9 days

This is my first  Ruminant Pink Friday™ submission as an unemployed person. I missed last Friday because the Easter bunny was in residence.

Navel gazing is always a good topic for Ruminant Pink Friday™ but I do not want to gaze at my own navel (although it merits considerable gazing) but rather I wish to gaze at humanity’s navel.  Of course one needs a suitably pompous phrase to summarise the human condition and this is anthropomorphic narcissism.  Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. This is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Everything around us is about us. It all exists for our benefit. Seeing everything around you as for your benefit is the very definition of narcissism which is an excessive interest in or admiration of oneself and one’s appearance. Humanity as a collective has narcissistic personality disorder where humanity has an inflated sense of its importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships and a lack of empathy.

How could this be you may ask?  In answering this I will take you on my personal journey of spiritual enlightenment that has brought me to my current state of undoubted magnificence and enlightenment. This has not been found in sacred or holy texts but in the revelations revealed by science over the past few centuries. Not so long ago it was humanity’s fervent belief and consensus that the earth was thousands of years old and was at the centre of the universe according to the geocentric model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_center_of_the_Universe. In the 17^th century Galileo observed the planets and the sun and followed the evidence which led to the inescapable conclusion that the earth revolved around the sun. For this he was persecuted, tried and convicted for heresy. In a unanimous judgement it was stated, “the proposition that the Sun is stationary at the centre of the universe is “foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture”.

Later in the 17^th century Isaac Newton made clear his heliocentric (the earth revolves around the sun) view of the solar system. He proposed that the centre of gravity of the solar system, which is at rest, is the centre of the universe. It was only in the middle of the 18^th century that it started to dawn on humanity that the sun is an unremarkable star and is one of about 100 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The centre of the universe then became the galactic centre of the Milky Way.

It was only in the 1920’s that it started to dawn on humanity that the Milky Way is an unremarkable galaxy amongst about 125 billion galaxies in the known universe. It is only in the last hundred years that our current understanding of the universe has evolved. It is only now that we know the universe is 13.8 billion years old and we also know that the modern form of humans are only about 200 000 years old. If we consider the age of the universe to be a day then humanity appears on the stage about five seconds before midnight. The distance between the earth and the edge of the observable universe is about 46 billion light years. The universe contains ~10²⁵ planets. The universe also has no centre. It is hard for our finite minds to comprehend this scale and the quote from J.B.S. Haldane is appropriate:

The Universe Is Not Only Queerer Than We Suppose, But Queerer Than We Can Suppose

It is abundantly self-evident that humanity is not at the centre of anything other than its own vanity and narcissism. We are not at the centre of the universe, nor does it exist for us or care about us. We are perfectly capable of destroying ourselves. On a positive note science has enabled us to understand our very insignificant place in the universe. For me this is as good as spiritual enlightenment gets.

Needless to say my views are not mainstream but mainstream human consensus has a poor track record in terms of dealing with reality.

Please provide further inspiration for future topics and navels to gaze at.

Regards

Bruce