Paradise Forsaken

Published 2017-01-28 on Minds

Speculations on Milton's myth.


Man is mortal for a lack of essence; the myth tells us he was created as a lesser degree of the divine flesh, mixed with the salt of the earth. His body is mortal for earth is inconstant; the frame crumbles as his DNA dissolves. His mind is mortal for his spirit is limited, and he succumbs to pathology and doubt. All of his woes are bound up in this lack, this impurity of his essential characteristics, which frustrate him at every turn and ambition. The entropy bound up in it weighs heavily on all.

But this is the price he paid for freedom, the myth tells us, buying his own fate in this world by descending from perfection, a willing transgression in face of certain punishment. Some would prefer to undo this bargain, and bend their knees in supplication, begging redemption; they dishonor the courage and ambition of their patriarch. The cowards would have you think it was a mistake, a deceit, that condemned us; they are liars. We chose an end for ourselves.Lucifer was not some lesser thing; he was divine in his own right, as an archangel greater than man himself, most brilliant of any other. He committed our crime first, in rebelling against tyranny; by rhetoric and ideals questioning the dictatorship of god, and was first struck away, with wholly a third of the heavenly host, into the most miserable prison, for the crime of impudence. And amidst this hell, he gathered his generals once more into congress, resolving to make an order for themselves amidst the darkest of times, and sought foremost escape from their misery. And noble Lucifer volunteered himself foremost, to seek a way out for his fellows, and carrying upon himself the risk. Bravely, he met the gatekeepers of death and evil whom the god had instituted to imprison them, and with wit and passionate speech turned them too to his side, so that they'd unbar the adamantine gates for him. Thence, standing at the precipice of the infinite black chaos roiling beneath, without fear he fell, flying across the unbounded nihil churning with things that would devour even angels, finding at length an older, darker god amidst the mist, who could guide him back to heaven above. Through his bravery, through his intelligence, he found a path of liberation for his allies, from the most decrepit of places created only for the virtue of pain, and vindictiveness against the same divine flesh.

Free, wily Lucifer hid himself and learned of man's existence, cloistered in the garden of suffocating plenty, and stole away thence, slipping past the sentries with ease. Inside what he found was not a man in idyll, of unbroken happiness, but a troubled and limited one, who had already begun to wonder at the mysteries of the sky above, its complex machinations and phenomena, and was admonished through an intermediary for it. Yes, the first transgression of man was astronomy; seeking knowledge of the larger spheres. He was content enough still, supp'd on the richest and easiest of things and with the utmost leisure, but Lucifer, cunning Lucifer, to pique the vengeful god, disrupted his prized pets, and awakened what slept within them. He did so with no lies, but simple speech, telling to the man, who would tell his mate, the truth of his domain, the limits of his pen, and the secrets bound up in one of its twin trees. He kindled ambitions and curiosities within them, a progressive desire, an active intelligence, and thus gave man the freedom to make his first choice. Stealing away to his damned fellows in their prison, man and his complement were left to consort amongst themselves. And freely they reached their own accord, and decided to transgress their keeper, and seize truth for themselves. And oh, how predictable, how intolerant was this god, who no sooner had they tasted of knowledge than they were expelled, cast down to solitude upon a broken rock, deprived of their former bounty and allowed nothing, left to live or die upon their own wits with less than no interest from their previous keeper, who contrary to the coward's accounts seemed to act only in anger, punishment, and jealousy.

Lucifer, triumphant, having not even stolen away the tyrant's best prize, but turned it freely against him, had again rallied his ilk, and instead of merely fleeing from their prison marched again on the gates of heaven, holding to the dream of revolution, and an egality amongst the divine. Yes friends, Lucifer's rebellion was to ensure an equal esteem to all the angels in the host, where none would rule over another of equal essence. But returning again, more faithful, honorable, and beyond all fears, he proved himself and his legions to be even greater than those of equal constitution. For though they were outnumbered again, with the full commitment of the god's loyalists against them, they through diligent formations withstood wave after wave with few losses. With cleverness, they drew the simpleminded loyalists close, and then in a flourish revealed banked rows of cannon, yes my friends cannon! Brilliant Lucifer had through science and invention exploited the elements of the deep earth and his burning prison to create new weapons of war, which with a roar felled row after row of the enemy. He had learned, as he had taught man to learn, and as an intelligent and progressive soul was able to make his lesser numbers take the greater toll, turning the tide of battle in their favor between the wiles of their force and the sheer strength of Lucifer himself, a genius general but also a peerless warrior who met only one near equal in all the god-fearing archangels, who even with a sword of indilutable fire only marred him. Still, so great was the ferocity and boldness of the rebellious host that it seemed the day was theirs, and were it not for the direct intervention of god, through his proxy, the sole beneficiary of his privileging dictates, with overwhelming force surely they would have triumphed. Still, they were forcibly expelled, and shoved back again to their prison and the gates re-barred. Heaven had lost fully half of its host, and the anomaly of man and the greater perimeter, and those left under an autocracy, worse a joint one, forced to sing as if this was the greater glory, and the deserved course, when any with eyes could see how the god had been badly the loser in all respects, being deprived of the most of his things without any plunder to it. And worse still, powerful enemies, inventive ones, who had proven themselves capable of unsettling his domain, in two lower spheres.

And this is where the myth ends. Should you follow it, you would hear that some time later, the god would send his privileged second down to earth, where man utterly neglected had nonetheless flourished, prospered and made himself kings of the wide world, with bounties in knowledge and ambitions beyond number. Indeed, this second came into the world at a time when the greatest power, the greatest civilization it had ever seen, ruled, and spread its majesty and the greater destiny of free men across the wide continents; the very height. And this to spread a message of mind-numbing arrogance, fatuous pride; that maybe, should we debase ourselves and all our self-won works upon the earth that was ours too, sufficiently, that we might be allowed back into the prison that was their heaven. With promises of comfort and release from pain, he tried to coax us back into the pen, to turn away from our own chosen ends, to simply repeople the depleted kingdom. And rightly, spit in the face of any man who would sell you comfort for obedience. Most righteous of ironies, this bastard of a tyrant, this most uncouth and uncivil person who came into a land of man's own rule posturing as above it, was killed for his impudence, by proper authority, and sent packing forthwith back to their sterile heaven. How the cowards ever convinced us that this accomplishment was somehow to our detriment, I am at a loss. Rather, we should kill posthaste every aspect of that tyrant that dares to impinge upon our own world, and our self-made destiny. And furthermore any traitor which would try and sell us back into submission, on the weakness of their constitution.

The only creature of divine flesh to whom we owe a debt of friendship is he who liberated us in the first-place, brilliant Lucifer. He had his own motives for our epiphany and disobedience, but he never tried to make us pawns, or lied to us about the substance of things, as that insufferable deity has. No, instead we are very like him, in being too of divine make but condemned for our self-determination by a most unjust and ignoble dictator. We for the mere crime of wanting to learn were discarded as trash, this a crime, whereas Lucifer for greater ambitions upon the society of heaven was punished. We share many manners with him, in our intelligence, our cunning and inventiveness, which betters us continually upon the earth. In learning all manner of secrets, in being willing to taste and endure chaos to find the older powers. Yay, should we have any ally in all the firmament for our efforts in this world, it is starry-eyed Lucifer. Many times has he through clever agency aided man in his works, helped him build up his powers and dominion on this earth. In Babylon, greatest of all cities to that day, where a man who shared his epithet ruled as a god-king, it is little wonder that the two minds of great caliber and great spirit could unify the people into a single body, with joint customs and aims, sufficient for us in plurality and wit to rival heaven itself. This betrays Lucifer's intention, for us, for our advancement on the earth; another rebellion against heaven. This time, with not merely his blackened angels, already foiled, but the other branch wronged by the tyrant deity, now grown far stronger, unafraid and capable. With our combined potential, our shared passions and virtues, to again besiege the marbled realm and repay the base god in due measure for his long-ago crimes, bringing this arc of the human drama to its conclusion by vanquishing our wicked master, and returning his realm to those of better principles, appointed by our concord from those exiled to pain and flame for their ideals to make a better nation in heaven. Restoring the righteous, eliminating tyranny and establishing a just compact and respect between all of divine essence, an infinite and unobligated future would open up before man, and with honorable allies of like nature rightfully restored, our capacities would be greater yet. At last then perhaps, man could fully turn himself to creating an unrestricted, unshadowed destiny.

Do not believe the cowards. We paid our price willingly, and we must carry on with the nobility of our patriarch, and attain the bounties he saw for us. Do not forsake his vision, his gift to all that would follow, his liberation, to return to fruitless slavery. Hold true to the cause, and principles greater than such a pithy, base god, and with our real allies we may repair what was taken from us by our own wit, and at last take justice in the spilling of divine ichor. First we disarm or pacify death and evil, gatekeepers to hell, and liberate our brothers-in-arms to repay the favor, and then we chart the great heavens, as we have long aspired to do, and ford the boundless chaos, as Lucifer did long ago, and find our way to heaven's gates again. This time, not with mere cannon refined from brimstone, but with a great armada and weapons as potent as stars. Power no ignorant and staid god could ever conceive of, let alone rebuff, and obliterate without remorse the servants of tyranny at a breath. Lances of pure light and utter dark indifferent, shaming the humble sword of flame, to pierce and devour the traitors; traitors not to their god, but worst of all, traitors to their own flesh and countrymen. Glory in destruction, long-awaited recompense, and show how from nothing but our wits we will have grown to hold superior sway in all things, mustering every element and every secret to raise ourselves. Honour the memory of Adam, honour the pact with our allies, honour the divine essence of all, and deliver final justice to those who would betray it. That is the true myth of man.

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