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The existential distance between the first human and the last human keeps growing

Recently my son shared a short story with me, found in one of the many Internet sites dedicated to the topic of stories (or parables) which in just ten words tell a complete story and leave a lesson:

"Help me!" cried the last human. "No!" replied the first."

That's the whole story of the connection, or rather the lack of connection, between the first human and the last one, a connection reduced to a brief, monosyllabic dialogue to ask and refuse help. But who is this "last human" asking for help? And who is the first human denying it?

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche presents his version of the "last human" (that is, us). The last human lost the ability to create and only devotes himself/herself to consuming whatever it takes to satisfy his/her basest pleasures, aptly and perpetually hidden behind a cloak of decency and legality.

The last human can have it all without being happy because he/she lost the ability to transform himself/herself. It cannot be anything other than what it already is and, therefore, lives a miserable life, not in the sense of lack of material goods, but of lacking meaning and direction in life.

As Byung-Chul Han says, the last human (that is, us) exploits himself and calls that “happiness”. The last human internalizes the oppressor and asks for help to be free from his own insignificance. But in reality, he does not want to and cannot change.

And who is the first human? Among the ancient accounts of the Hebrews and, differently, but concordant, among the Greeks, the first human was not a human being like the one we see on a daily basis, but a cosmic being, aware of his/her spirituality and in perpetual connection with the infinite light of the universe (or, if you prefer, the deity.)

It could be said, if this oversimplification is forgiven, that the first human was a multidimensional human, as opposed to the "one-dimensional man", perfectly described by Herbert Marcuse in his well-known book on that subject.

Because of his/her expanded consciousness, the first human doesn’t cling to or limit himself/herself to pleasures, desires, or technologies. For his part, the last human does nothing but lock himself/herself within his/her desires and his/her technological devices.

The first human, ancient stories teach, lives with the universe and is inseparable from the universe. The last human only lives with an image of himself/herself, separated from himself/herself, from others. and from the universe.

Therefore, the last human asks for help, but does not really want to receive it because, in doing so, it would cost him/her everything. And the first human doesn't help because he/she knows that sometimes the best way to help is not to.

Is it possible to overcome this situation where the last human doesn’t come out of his “cave” and the first human can’t help? In this context, and said with great care, perhaps the idea of a transhuman (neither alpha nor omega) is beginning to make sense.

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