Preservation

‘Hunger, love, pain, fear are some of those inner forces which rule the individual’s instinct for self preservation.’ Albert Einstein

My initial response to the concept of preservation is it’s like an N.R.A approach – be willing to take a life in order to protect one. I have always believed that is utter crap. I have argued this on The Northlands I won’t go into it again except to give this summary and link:

The reason I hate guns is if we have got them we use them. I have had really fucking awful days when the thought of a quick and painless end to it all would have been attractive. Thank God I didn’t have a gun. I have had fucking awful days when I could have cheerfully blown my husband’s head off and done a happy dance in his pooling blood. Thank God I didn’t have gun. I strongly believe people do not have the right to bear arms… no matter what is says it says in your constitution.

It is also (as in the image I chose to illustrate this post) an illusion. A rose pressed into a Bible like a blood stain. How can a dead thing be considered preserved? The simulcrum is all that remains; the mammoth in the ice, a damp fossil. Take the DNA, create a new beast and what have you preserved ? A sense of man as god? Or a faker? Magician or illusionist?

So is preservation ever worthwhile? I think it is a subtle power. Culture preserves a sense of self and Faith a sense of Soul. We should be willing to die for something. If not the right to bear arms then maybe the right to lay them down.