The End Game
- Not all of us can be geniuses, but all of us can be loyal, said Marion.
Lucian hated the word “genius”. It was gay. This word originated from Latin and originally it meant the spirit of male fertility. Of course men can’t give birth to an actual human, so it meant fertility of the mind.
- It’s a bad deal for me, Lucian answered. There is nothing noble in loyalty out of weakness. It leads only to general evil. You forfeit your mind, and you turn into a slave to same Lenin.
- No, not Lenin! said Marion, Lenin was not our brother. We will follow a brother, one we know is of the same stock as us.
- I’ll tell you right now, answered Lucian, the noble man can never consider mindless followers as of his own stock, even if they follow him and obey him perfectly. The noble spirit cannot bear the submissive spirit.
- Spirit? Said Marion. It’s the 21st century. There is no such thing as spirit. There are only genes. Every one of us is merely the vector of the Great Genetic Stock that we bear. Some of us get lucky and we get the mix that makes us brilliant, while most of us don’t get lucky and turn out mediocre. But even the mediocre majority carries the latent potential to express genius in its progeny. Therefore the mediocre are also valuable.
- You would make a great ant or a bee Marion, and you really are humble. But I am a human. I am neither a vector nor a transitory form. Something has happened in the distant past, and our animal flesh was stung directly by the Spirit who designed the whole game from the beginning. For this reason you and I are neither the mineral nor the plant, nor the animal creation, but we bear the potential of filiality to the Creator himself. We are called not to evolve like plants and animals, but to decide and make a choice, and if the choice is right we will escape the mortal coil of evolution and ascend directly to become like gods.
- You are mad! Look at the vast masses of humanity and the filth and idiocy that is their destiny. You really think that the Creator of this Universe would call each one of them a child, if they only chose? This is arrogance. We are only carriers of filthy genes with gems buried scarcely in the millions of nucleotides, and our task is to retrieve the gems and polish them, and let the filthy and useless stuff sink into forgetfulness, like the forgetfulness of the many transitional forms before history, when our genes crawled in the brine and mud of the Mother Ocean.
- Tell me then, said Lucian, what do you imagine the final form to be? You cannot enjoy the simple pleasures of life, like me. I enjoy a good coffee in the morning, and a good beer with a friend, and the love of my woman, and the expressions of human sorrow and hope. This is an aberration to you? If you seek beauty, there are already the beautiful, and they are shallow. If you seek intelligence, there are already the intelligent, and they are autistic. If you seek happiness, there are already the content, and they are idiots.
- I don’t know what the final form will be, but I know that we’re not it.
- I find your lack of faith disappointing, answered Lucian. Look at yourself and look at the passers by, and behold the man. You will rise above this only by piercing through your animal nature and confessing your grand origin.