424. A Beautiful Bomb

Nothing less than a world-destroyer will do. You’ve set this incredible standard for yourself because you know you’ll never succeed without it. You’ll be distracted into thinking about things that aren’t worth thinking about. You’ll end up pursuing some lesser idea that won’t solve anything. You’ll falsely believe that you’re creating something great when you’re not.

To prevent such an outrageous disaster, you’ve set goals for your creative work. Every idea is given a rank — world-destroyer is the highest one. It’s called world-destroyer because that is what such an idea is supposed to do. At least, were adequate resources and time invested in it, it would theoretically be capable of fulfilling its task of total destruction.

In practice, there are limits, so this is not how things will play out. In practice, the best you can do is to plant the seeds of destruction, to formulate the means for further change to follow, to amass the materials used to meet the ultimate need. The ultimate need being nothing other than total destruction itself.

Of course, the point is not to literally cause the planet to explode. The world that is to be destroyed is not the physical world, but the human-created world of norms, conventions, and institutions. The point is to supplant everything existing with something wholly new. The point is to clear the ground of all that is stagnant and tired and utterly lifeless. The point is not actually destruction, but rejuvenation, a blossoming of new life.

And because life is beautiful, the only way to create it is with something beautiful. The world-destroyer is nothing other than a beautiful bomb. Creating an environment in which fresh life can flourish requires all of the accumulated detritus to be removed, and what better to blast away what has become as solid as rock than an explosion? The bomb that creates the world anew — that is your only goal.