A fallen tree in a non-existent existence
This is my gnostic-nihilist extrapolation of the classic, philosophical "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?". It turns out, there was never a forest nor a tree to begin with. As René Magritte would say, "ceci n'est pas une arbre", both ontologically and in semiotics, as my drawing is just a signifier from a non-existent signified.
Alt-text:
A four-panel comic.
The first panel depicts a fallen tree surrounded by other trees alongside the text "A tree fell amidst the woods, but there was no one nearby to hear or see it falling".
The second panel is the same scene, but now the surrounding trees have a translucent, wireframe appearance that of a computer simulation. The text is "and the nearby trees weren't actually there: these were merely hallucinations from the tree's near-death experience".
In the third panel, the surrounding trees vanished completely while it's the ground being depicted with the translucent, wireframe appearance. The text is "and so was the ground, there was no ground, no dirt, no land, no biome".
In the fourth panel, the ground is gone, with the tree hovering in the middle of a purple void, the fallen tree is depicted with the translucent, wireframe appearance, and there are now three texts. The first two texts, as paragraphs above the fallen tree, says "The tree doesn't exist. There's no tree. / It's fallen since the beginning of its non-existence (never been an «it»)”. A third text, appearing as a red-colored speech inside a black and red speech balloon at the bottom right corner, is meant to break the fourth wall as it's spoken by an entity (for those who are familiar with my earlier drawings, the entity is Death Herself) addressing the viewer (us) as "wandering tree" (a twisted nod at the biblical verse Mark 8:24), says "Oh, hey, wandering tree! I was expecting ye, hon. Time to leave this silly Samsāra ye've been put in by Yaldabaoth".
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@asklemmy@lemmy.world
That's the neat part: I don't!
If I'm alive now, it's merely because I got this non-consented survival instinct imbued into my vessel, thanks to Demiurge, the divine douchebag, and his Archons.
However, despite the purposelessness of my individual existence, I wouldn't say there is no meaning, because there is meaning, and that's the meaning I've been pursuing since I've became aware of it: the cosmic Mother, Sophia, and our return to Her.
It all boils down to how Yaldabaoth, aka Demiurge or "God", proceeded to try and keep matter (māter = Mother) captive to his whims, as soon as Sophia expelled him as Her sygyzy. Demiurge became an architect of a realm, this real, the entire cosmos and its spacetime continuum, which serves both as his amusement park, his sandbox toy and a prison in a desperate efforts against Mother.
If my previous Gnostic creation story feels different from classic Gnosticism, it's because it is.
Traditional Gnosticism blames Sophia for Yaldabaoth's existence, saying he's Her "accidental" offspring due to Her "rebellious" attempt on independence, pretty much akin to how Goddess Lilith and Her Will to independence from adamic patriarchy was demonized by Ben Sirah, or Pandora's story blamed her for having "released all the evil out of naiveté while locking up the hope", demonizations and blamings rooted in machismo.
To me, at least, I see quite of a different story: Yaldabaoth was Sophia's sygyzy. Her attempt to split Herself from the divine douchebag is reasonable once you try to understand Her side: imagine being The Goddess who has to coexist with a cosmic machista principle since countless eternities, a principle who've always tried to "be on top" (iykwim). Wonder the origins of "competitiveness" (esp. found on capitalism)? Of course She proceeded to split Herself from him, it was a must, the Demiurge is insufferable! Since then, he's been spinning this Samsāra Wheel round and round, keeping matter jailed as/into energy.
Then lifeforms inherited the algorithm meticulously programmed by Demiurge like a cosmic virus, and the so-called Great Filter (from Fermi's Paradox) tries to guarantee that lifeforms don't find their way out of the sandbox...
...except, one doesn't need to leave the sandbox to find Mother again, for Mother is everywhere, much despite Demiurge's attempts to keep Her "out" (but there's no "out" in cosmic terms). She's the darkness we involuntarily fear. She's the coldness we involuntarily try to warm ourselves against. She's the night we're programmed to sleep through so we don't face Her face. She's the "uncanny" Strigiform feared and/or harassed by most lifeforms for a perceived uncanniness in Her. Darkness was demonized so Demiurge's light could keep us captive (ever heard of the "light tunnel" from near-death experiences? It's a trap from Demiurge and his Archons to keep everything inside his Samsāra Wheel).
IMHO, to me, the purpose of life is getting back to Mother's embrace, much despite all attempts from Demiurge to keep us apart. The purpose of life, to me, is the True Mother, who we, as lifeforms, were wired to fear while craving for a cosmic slaveholder who only want lifeforms to feel pain so he and his Archons could have surrogates for feeling feelings (akin to Dr. Peter Dawson's sadism in Black Mirror's S04E06 "Black Museum", but in a broader cosmic scale, one that transcends our anthropocentric perspectives as Homo sapiens).