Darkover
Archangel
- Jul 29, 2021
- 5,517
Life is often romanticized — as a miracle, a gift, a sacred opportunity. But strip away the comforting illusions, the propaganda of hope, and the glitter of sentimentality, and what you find is something far more disturbing: life is awful. Not because of how it's lived by some, but because of what it inherently is for far too many. The structure of life itself — the biological, environmental, and social forces that define it — is a system built on suffering, randomness, and cruelty.
Let us begin with the most brutal and undeniable fact: over 100,000 children die of cancer every year. These are not people who made destructive choices. They are not guilty, not even conscious of the world they've been thrown into before it betrays them. They come into existence and are handed a sentence of unimaginable pain and early death. The innocence of children is irrelevant to the blind, mechanical processes of mutations and malignant cell growth. Nature doesn't care. And that indifference is horrifying.
Then there are the children who don't die, but who begin life already marked by tragedy. 1 in 17 babies is born with a birth defect, often requiring surgeries, lifelong medical care, or leaving them with permanent disabilities. These defects range from mild to catastrophic, from cosmetic to fatal. Many of these children will never know a day without discomfort, limitation, or stigma. They are broken at the starting line — and not by any choice of their own.
Beyond defects, 1 in 10 children live with a disability. This means hundreds of millions of young lives shaped by physical, cognitive, or emotional hardship. These are not just statistical realities — they are lived nightmares for many families. Disabilities are not only about limitation; they often come with exclusion, misunderstanding, and a life spent navigating a world designed without them in mind. A world that often doesn't care, or even notice.
And while humans suffer, our dominion over the animal world reveals an even greater scale of horror. Over 2 trillion animals are killed every single year for food — a staggering number that defies comprehension. These animals are not only killed but often endure lives of extreme confinement, stress, and fear. Their deaths are violent and painful, their lives reduced to units of production. Evolution made them sentient. We made them products. This isn't survival — it's an industrialized system of annihilation.
What kind of world is this? One in which children die of cancer, babies are born broken, minds and bodies are shaped by limitations from the start, and trillions of living beings are bred and butchered in a system of mass suffering — all so that life can feed on itself?
This is not a flaw in the system. This is the system. Life survives by consuming other life. It begins in randomness, often continues in pain, and ends in death — always. The good is accidental. The suffering is inevitable. It is stitched into the DNA of reality.
There is no moral justification for this. No cosmic purpose. No higher plan. Evolution has no ethics. Nature has no mercy. And society, even at its best, can only soften the blows — not erase them.
To be alive is to be subject to forces you did not choose, in a body you did not design, in a world that kills indiscriminately. And worst of all, to be expected to celebrate it — to smile, to carry on, to pretend it's all okay.
But it's not okay.
This is not nihilism for the sake of rebellion. It's honesty born of observation. To see the suffering of children, the agony of animals, the randomness of disease and disability, and to call this reality good is not hope — it is delusion. The world is not beautiful with a few flaws. It is a horror with moments of light.
Let us begin with the most brutal and undeniable fact: over 100,000 children die of cancer every year. These are not people who made destructive choices. They are not guilty, not even conscious of the world they've been thrown into before it betrays them. They come into existence and are handed a sentence of unimaginable pain and early death. The innocence of children is irrelevant to the blind, mechanical processes of mutations and malignant cell growth. Nature doesn't care. And that indifference is horrifying.
Then there are the children who don't die, but who begin life already marked by tragedy. 1 in 17 babies is born with a birth defect, often requiring surgeries, lifelong medical care, or leaving them with permanent disabilities. These defects range from mild to catastrophic, from cosmetic to fatal. Many of these children will never know a day without discomfort, limitation, or stigma. They are broken at the starting line — and not by any choice of their own.
Beyond defects, 1 in 10 children live with a disability. This means hundreds of millions of young lives shaped by physical, cognitive, or emotional hardship. These are not just statistical realities — they are lived nightmares for many families. Disabilities are not only about limitation; they often come with exclusion, misunderstanding, and a life spent navigating a world designed without them in mind. A world that often doesn't care, or even notice.
And while humans suffer, our dominion over the animal world reveals an even greater scale of horror. Over 2 trillion animals are killed every single year for food — a staggering number that defies comprehension. These animals are not only killed but often endure lives of extreme confinement, stress, and fear. Their deaths are violent and painful, their lives reduced to units of production. Evolution made them sentient. We made them products. This isn't survival — it's an industrialized system of annihilation.
What kind of world is this? One in which children die of cancer, babies are born broken, minds and bodies are shaped by limitations from the start, and trillions of living beings are bred and butchered in a system of mass suffering — all so that life can feed on itself?
This is not a flaw in the system. This is the system. Life survives by consuming other life. It begins in randomness, often continues in pain, and ends in death — always. The good is accidental. The suffering is inevitable. It is stitched into the DNA of reality.
There is no moral justification for this. No cosmic purpose. No higher plan. Evolution has no ethics. Nature has no mercy. And society, even at its best, can only soften the blows — not erase them.
To be alive is to be subject to forces you did not choose, in a body you did not design, in a world that kills indiscriminately. And worst of all, to be expected to celebrate it — to smile, to carry on, to pretend it's all okay.
But it's not okay.
This is not nihilism for the sake of rebellion. It's honesty born of observation. To see the suffering of children, the agony of animals, the randomness of disease and disability, and to call this reality good is not hope — it is delusion. The world is not beautiful with a few flaws. It is a horror with moments of light.
