Patheon of Devils

 

Ah, my dear readers, one cannot but observe with a certain wry amusement—and indeed, a touch of melancholy—the recent effusions concerning man’s supposed divinity. It seems to be the fashion in certain quarters, particularly among those who dabble in what is now termed "New Age" mysticism, to declare, with a conviction bordering on the evangelical, that each of us is, in truth, an individual "god." A fascinating conceit, is it not? One almost wishes it were so, if only for the sheer drama of the thing.

But let us, for a moment, descend from the airy heights of such pronouncements and cast a steady gaze upon the world as it actually stands. For if we are indeed, each of us, a divine spark, a miniature omnipotence, then one must ask, with a polite but firm insistence: what precisely have we been doing with this boundless power?

Consider, if you will, the state of this beautiful Creation—a world once teeming with such vibrant life, such intricate design, such a delicate balance. In less than an age, as measured by the slow turn of geological time, we—these self-proclaimed gods—have managed to unravel a good deal of it. Our industrial marvels, hailed as triumphs of human ingenuity, have belched forth smoke and poisoned the air. Our ceaseless hunger for resources has gouged the very earth, leaving scars that may never heal. The oceans, once vast and mysterious, now choke on our plastic detritus, and their inhabitants perish in our nets. Species, countless and irreplaceable, vanish with an alarming regularity, extinguished not by some cosmic cataclysm, but by the relentless march of our "divine" progress.

The rivers run foul, the forests fall silent, and the very climate, upon which all life depends, seems to be lurching towards an ominous uncertainty, all thanks to the collective will of these purported deities. We have built systems—economic, political, technological—of such crushing weight and intricate complexity that they seem to possess a life of their own, often beyond our control, yet entirely born of our hands. And these systems, far from elevating us, have often ground the very spirit out of humanity, fostering division, avarice, and a soul-crushing despair.

If we are gods, then we are certainly of a most peculiar and destructive sort. One might be forgiven for entertaining the notion that, rather than a pantheon of benevolent or even neutral divinities running amuck, we are, in fact, a veritable conclave of devils, each possessed of a singular talent for defilement and ruin. For the true mark of divinity, surely, is creation, sustenance, and wisdom. What we have wrought, however, bears the unmistakable hallmarks of precisely the opposite.

No, my friends, the claim that we are individual "gods" rings hollow and absurd in the face of such overwhelming evidence. To posit such a grand identity while simultaneously presiding over such a shambles of a world is not merely hubris; it is a profound failure of observation, a willful blindness to the undeniable consequences of our actions.

Perhaps it would be more profitable, and certainly more truthful, to acknowledge our undeniable capacity for destruction, our terrifying power to mar and corrupt. For only in such an honest appraisal can we begin the arduous task of redemption, of striving, not to be gods, but to be truly human—which is, after all, a far more challenging and perhaps more noble aspiration than any fleeting claim to omnipotence. For it is in humility, and not in inflated self-congratulation, that genuine change, and perhaps even a flicker of true goodness, might yet arise from the ashes of our folly.