Humans As Matter

We are born almost exclusively matter. Our aim is to become almost exclusively soul. This trajectory of nature, our teleology, though rarely perceived and barely understood by those few who do perceive it, must be the touchstone of all our self-understanding and all our judgments and choices. Today, however, men strive to maintain and perpetuate their most fully material condition, regarding the gradual transition away from it as indicating a loss of vitality, whereas in truth this transition might be the definition of vitality. Our material substratum, insofar as it is to remain the matter of a living thing, is essentially the self-developing impetus towards — or the longing for, if you prefer — the soul. To restate this in somewhat Aristotelian terms, matter is potential, potential is desire, and the desire to know (the most spiritual form) is the definitive case of desire, both in the sense of being the highest example of potential existence and in the sense of being the case upon which all others depend. 


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