12 Rules for Life (Full) ENGLISH

who see into the future can also eternally see trouble coming, and must then
prepare for all contingencies and possibilities. To do that, you will have to
eternally sacrifice the present for the future. You must put aside pleasure for
security. In short: you will have to work. And it’s going to be difficult. I hope
you’re fond of thorns and thistles, because you’re going to grow a lot of
them.”
And then God banishes the first man and the first woman from Paradise,
out of infancy, out of the unconscious animal world, into the horrors of
history itself. And then He puts cherubim and a flaming sword at the gate of
Eden, just to stop them from eating the Fruit of the Tree of Life. That, in
particular, appears rather mean-spirited. Why not just make the poor humans
immortal, right away? Particularly if that is your plan for the ultimate future,
anyway, as the story goes? But who would dare to question God?
Perhaps Heaven is something you must build, and immortality something
you must earn.
And so we return to our original query: Why would someone buy
prescription medication for his dog, and then so carefully administer it, when
he would not do the same for himself? Now you have the answer, derived
from one of the foundational texts of mankind. Why should anyone take care
of anything as naked, ugly, ashamed, frightened, worthless, cowardly,
resentful, defensive and accusatory as a descendant of Adam? Even if that
thing, that being, is himself? And I do not mean at all to exclude women with
this phrasing.
All the reasons we have discussed so far for taking a dim view of humanity
are applicable to others, as much as to the self. They’re generalizations about
human nature; nothing more specific. But you know so much more about
yourself. You’re bad enough, as other people know you. But only you know
the full range of your secret transgressions, insufficiencies and inadequacies.
No one is more familiar than you with all the ways your mind and body are
flawed. No one has more reason to hold you in contempt, to see you as
pathetic—and by withholding something that might do you good, you can
punish yourself for all your failings. A dog, a harmless, innocent,
unselfconscious dog, is clearly more deserving.
But if you are not yet convinced, let us consider another vital issue. Order,
chaos, life, death, sin, vision, work and suffering: that is not enough for the
authors of Genesis, nor for humanity itself. The story continues, in all its