VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 8, SECTION 1
What Mars Is: a Barren Land
The last chapter, at its end, left one question: some say it does not matter if this planet is spoiled, people can move somewhere else, Mars, say. Is that right? This section first sets down the first layer: what Mars is. The answer: Mars is a barren land, a dead, desolate, waste planet where no living thing can live. It has not one of the seven Earth has: no air to breathe, no water to drink, no soil to till, no sunlight and warmth that are just right, no turning seasons, no warmth of the human world, not one thing growing. Only once the truth of Mars is seen plainly can what the next section sets down be seen plainly: that so-called move to Mars is a murder, and it is also a robbing of wealth and a taking of lives.
One. Mars Does Not Have the Seven
First, lay out the truth of Mars. The last chapter set down that Earth is paradise, and it rested on the seven: air, water, soil, sunlight, the turning seasons, the smoke and warmth of the human world, and life that renews itself without end. Does Mars have these seven? Not one.
Mars has no air to breathe: that layer outside it is so thin it is almost nothing, and it cannot be breathed, and a person there could not live a single moment. Mars has no water to drink: its surface is dried up, and whatever little water there is, is either sealed as hard ice or hidden underground, no living water to take and drink. Mars has no soil to till: the whole ground is dead red sand and stone, not a blade of grass grows, not one grain can be raised. Mars has no sunlight and warmth that are just right: it is farther from the sun, the cold cuts to the bone, the gap between day and night is huge, so cold that all things freeze to death. Mars has no livable order of time like the turning seasons, not the least warmth of the human world, and still less the life of one blade of grass, one tree, one bird, one insect. Look out as far as the eye reaches, and there is only endless red grit, in the dead cold, silent since time began, without a trace of anything alive. The seven of Earth are the proof of paradise; Mars holds not one, and that is the hard proof of barrenness. Set the two side by side, and paradise and waste planet are clearly, sharply apart.
This comparison, more than anything, pricks one myth. When people talk of Mars, they are often taken in by the newness of "another planet," as if it were one more happy land where people could settle, only waiting for people to go and open it up. But take the seven of Earth and set them against Mars one by one, and that myth vanishes like smoke: the seven are seven lifelines by which living things go on, Mars has none of the seven, and so it is no happy land waiting to be opened up, it is a dead land through and through. People are easily cowed by the word "planet," and think that any planet can take people in to live the way Earth does; little do they know that in this vast universe the planets are past counting, and of those that can take in living things to live at ease, people to this day know only this one. Mars and Earth, though both called planets, are one a paradise brimming with life, the other a waste planet dead and soundless, and the gulf between them, as wide as heaven from earth, allows no blurring.
Two. A Barren Land, Where People Have No Way to Live
Since Mars does not have the seven, can people who get there live? No. At most, they drag out a dying life inside sealed shells, one after another.
If people really went to Mars, they could not breathe, drink, till and live at ease the way they do on Earth. They could only hide inside sealed cabins, one after another, holding on barely by air, water and food carried from Earth or made with the utmost labor. Outside the cabin is thin air that cannot be breathed, ice that cannot be drunk, dead soil that cannot be tilled, cold that freezes all things to death. People there would not be living, they would be caged inside fragile shells, one after another, at every moment depending on the shell not breaking and the supply not stopping; let the shell break, let the supply stop, and they die on the spot. This kind of living, in constant fear, life hanging by a thread, is as far from the ease on Earth as cloud from mud, where you open the door and there is air, bend down and there is clear water. This is not settling down and making a life, it is hanging your life on a thread, not knowing in the morning whether you will see the night. The kind of living on Earth, at ease, abundant, renewing without end, Mars cannot give; what Mars can give is at most a last gasping inside a shell, dragged out, not knowing in the morning whether you will see the night.
Think what the days inside that shell would be like. People crowded into a narrow sealed cabin, not daring to open the door, not daring to take off the mask, eating from a limited store, drinking water purified over and over, breathing air made by machines. Outside the cabin, cold of tens of degrees below zero, deadly radiation, endless dead silence. People in a shell like that, how can they speak of tilling, of seasons, of the warmth of the human world, of life that renews itself without end? And how could the five be raised there? A person struggling all day long just to stay alive, caged in a shell and never at ease, where would keep, guard, love, mercy, heart come from, where would kindness, help, respect come from? The dragged-out life inside the shell is not only the hardship of the body, it is the drying-up of the five, of the human world. So to say Mars cannot give life is not only to say it cannot give the body a place to rest; it is to say it cannot give the human world in which the real human's share can be raised and can flow. With no human world, there are no five; with no five, even if the body lives on somehow in the shell, it is no longer the way a real human lives.
Three. The Abundance of Earth, the Poverty of Mars
Set the two places side by side, and the size of the difference is frightening.
On Earth, a person steps out of the door and there is air to breathe, clear water to drink, rich soil to till, warm sun to bathe in; look up and there are the turning seasons, at your side the warmth of the human world, before your eyes life renewing itself without end. All this costs no money, takes no effort, comes for nothing, and never runs out. On Mars, all this, not one thing of it is there, every one of them has to be made from nothing, made, carried and kept going with the utmost labor; and what is made and kept going is still only that little share inside the shell, barely enough to stay alive. How abundant Earth is, how generous, how kindly it treats living things; how poor Mars is, how stingy, how hostile to life. People keep a paradise as abundant as Earth and do not know to cherish it, yet dream of going to scrape a living on a waste planet as poor as Mars, and what a muddle that is. Only when the two are set side by side do you know how precious Earth is, and that Mars cannot be leaned on.
This comparison also shows up one way people have things upside down. On Earth, keeping a paradise this abundant, people do not know their good fortune while in the midst of it; the seven that cost no money, take no effort and come for nothing, they take for granted, do not cherish, even spoil at will. And toward Mars, poor and dead, where it takes the strength of nine oxen and two tigers just to get a bare foothold, they grow endless imaginings and longings, and think it some marvelous new heaven and earth. Is this not upside down? Not cherishing the ready-made, abundant paradise before their eyes, and setting their hearts on the poor, deadly waste planet far away. The cause of this upside-down state is half the common sickness of not knowing your good fortune in the midst of it, and half being taken in by that new, grand talk of "opening up a new planet." See through this upside-down state, and you know that what truly deserves all of people's strength to guard is not that far waste planet, but exactly this ready-made, abundant, one and only paradise under their feet. To pass over the near to seek the far, to give up the rich to go to the barren, is the first-rank muddle of the human world; and this muddle, once it becomes the claim to pour in on a vast scale, to give up Earth and rush to Mars, is no longer only a muddle, it is a disaster that will cost lives.
Four. Mars Is No Way Out, and in Truth There Is No Way Out
Some people take Mars as a way out: if Earth is ruined, there is still Mars to fall back on. This way out cannot be relied on; when all is said, people have no way out at all.
Since Mars is a barren land, and people there could at most drag out a dying life, it does not count as a real way out. To take it as a way out is a dangerous illusion: it makes people think it does not matter if Earth is spoiled, there is still somewhere to fall back to, and so they grow ever more careless, ever more sure of themselves, about the spoiling going on right now. This illusion is more fearful than the poverty of Mars itself, because it loosens the watchfulness with which people guard Earth. This illusion must be pricked: Mars is no way out, and the dragged-out life in the shell is not living; in all this vast universe that people know and can reach, only this one, Earth, lets people live at ease, abundantly, renewing without end. Beyond Earth, people have nowhere at all to fall back to. Only with no way out do you know that this one and only planet can only be guarded, not given up; only then do you know that guarding Earth is not a choice you may make or not make, but a thing with no way out, a thing that must be done. This layer turns the guarding of Earth from a good deed that may be put off or rushed into a must-do on which life and death hang: those who have a way out can still pick and choose at leisure; those with no way out can only fight with their backs to the river. People on this one and only paradise have exactly no way out: guard it, and the children and grandchildren of ten thousand generations have a home to return to; ruin it, and the whole race has nowhere to flee. See this layer, that there is no way out, and the weight of guarding Earth truly comes down on every person's shoulders.
Five. The Layer This Section Has Made Plain
This section has made plain what Mars is: a barren land.
Mars has not one of the seven Earth has: no air to breathe, no water to drink, no soil to till, no sunlight that is just right, no turning seasons, no warmth of the human world, no life. People there could at most drag out a dying life inside a shell, and could not live at ease and in abundance. To take Mars as a way out is a dangerous illusion; for people who keep a paradise as abundant as Earth to dream of falling back to a waste planet as poor as Mars is a muddle; and once Earth is ruined, people have nowhere at all to fall back to. Once it is seen that Mars is a barren land, once it is seen that people in truth have no way out, that talk of "better to go to Mars" can no longer stand; and the deeper, heavier layer of the next section can then be set down: that so-called claim to "move people to Mars" is not only a muddle, it is a murder, and it is also a robbing of wealth and a taking of lives. A muddle is still only a failure of understanding; murder, and robbing wealth and taking lives, are crimes against human lives and against the human heart. From muddle to crime, the layers lying between, why it is murder, why it is robbing wealth and taking lives, how these two charges are made to stand, are what the next section will make plain, one layer at a time.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.
Section Two. Moving to Mars Is a Murder, and a Robbing of Wealth and a Taking of Lives.