‘It wants to use you to lure the many-too-many. Yes, a cunning device of Hell has here been devised, a horse of death jingling with the trappings of divine honors! Yes, a death for many has here been devised that glorifies itself as life: Truly, a heart-felt service to all preachers of death!

‘I call it the State where everyone, good and bad, is a poison-drinker: The State where everyone, good and bad, loses himself: the State where universal slow suicide is called - life.

‘Only there, where the State ceases, does the man who is not superfluous begin: Does the song of the necessary man, the unique and irreplaceable melody, begin. There, where the State ceases - look there, my brothers. Do you not see it: The rainbow and the bridges to the Superman?’ (Thus Spake Zarathustra)

I am a Child

By Fred Chamberlain (April 1970)

I am a child - among infants who call themselves adults and imagine that their years of growth have passed. I will remain a child because to mature is to prepare for death, and my goal is life.

The purpose of life is survival. The weed and the sequoia both survive, but somehow there is a difference. Man, being self-conscious, can work to alter his own nature. The man with the stature of a weed can seek to become like a sequoia. The man with the stature of a sequoia can seek to become anything he can comprehend. But the infant who calls himself an adult seeks nothing.

What interaction do I seek with regard to others? Besides exchanging my work for theirs, I seek to help them grow. I will use my strength to maximum advantage, to increase the growth of others to the greatest extent for each minute of my time invested.

I do not seek to help those who do not need my help - perhaps I need theirs. I do not seek to help those who do

not want my help - there are too many others who do want it. I do not seek to help those whose declared purpose is my destruction - survival does not lie that way. I do not seek to teach first grade if I am geared for teaching at a high school level. I seek most to help those who wish to deal with me freely, without coercion. Their growth can only increase the fruition of our relationship, and they do not threaten my existence or my freedom to choose my own values.

Today, I swap apples for oranges. Tomorrow, perhaps I will trade the materials I mine from a planet’s core for products manufactured in the corona of the sun. Today I can help children to learn about the pitfalls of irrationality. Perhaps tomorrow I can help other children to discover the full potential of symbolic logic.

But beyond all, my goal is life. For the time being, I will fight biological aging, but - I will not become an adult; I will never mature; I am a child.

EXTROPY

#5 - Winter Issue, 1990

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