Devoured by Our Own Design: The Ouroboros of Humanity

by Vin Ryde

From the ancient Ouroboros symbol, a snake eating its own tail, comes the eerie resemblance of the human path. From where it originated, representing perpetual cycles, rebirth, it now reflects the irony of civilization. It is the very constructs that would lift us up; that would be, the nations, the religions, the economies,etc, that now eat their creator. As the Ouroboros, we're caught up in a cycle, where progress feeds on our being, where order consumes the mercy that once held us together.

Simplicity as Union

Far before there were flags and frontiers, humans lived as small bands, bound together by survival and common cause. In the Stone Age, frontiers were irrelevant. It was not virtuous to be cooperative, only necessary. Tribes hunted together, they shared fire, they babysat each other’s young. The basis of survival was built on sentiment and mutual need. Identity was not chiseled in lines of territory or creed, but in the identification of the same throb in each human heart. Primitive man intuitively remembered something that latter man forgets; that survival hinges on unity.

Birth of Civilization: Order Out of Chaos

As man evolved, so did his need for order. From the Nile cradle to the Indus banks, we gave birth to civilizations; organized, complex, and visionary. We created laws to protect, religions to inspire, and nations to lead. Religion was a tool to morality, the government promised justice, and culture provided meaning. These creations were our tools; an extension of mankind’s common will, to protect order in expanding societies. Civilization was mankind’s best invention, a blueprint to hold on to that most valuable part of itself: peace, dignity, common purpose.

When Tools Become Chains

But somehow, along the line, those inventions took over. Countries became walls, not homes. Religions were battle lines, rather than bridges. Laws came to favor the powerful over people. The dream of oneness broke into cauldrons of “us versus them.” That which used to unite now separates; that which was designed to serve dominates. Humankind became subservient to the very work it was intended to hold safe. Tribalism was reincarnated as patriotism, the tongue that speaks dogma, the heart that beats competition. The Ouroboros drew tighter the coil that fed on the very substance it was designed to keep safe. Contemporary Crisis: The War Against Ourselves

Today, the symptoms of this inversion are ringing around the world. Wars break out over borders defined by long-departed hands. Fanatical intolerance converts religion, a road to the divine became a reason to loathe. Nationalism closes eyes to the common man, turning neighbors into enemies. In the back of each conflict, each crisis, there is a mere truth: we've forgotten who we are. We are not citizens of countries, but of Earth; not children of religions, but of humanity.

Back to Essence

But each cycle holds the promise of rebirth. The Ouroboros doesn't consume, it rejuvenates. Our task before us is not to leave civilization behind, but to redesign it. To emerge beyond the confines of country and belief, to a mindset based on global citizenship. To perceive each human as kin, each border as fictive, each difference as blessing.

Real progress is not about walls or arms, but about understanding. Compassion is the money of the future, empathy the building plan of the state, and unity the doctrine of the human race.

Beyond the Serpent's Tail

History's cycles remind us: each empire that remembers it is no longer human falls into the dust it used to dominate. But there, even, is the dust of rebirth. To prioritize mankind over borders is no idealism; it is survival. It requires a new mythos, where the Ouroboros no longer represents consuming, but waking up; a civilization that comes to know the art of sustaining, rather than devouring, the very substance it originated from.