"Why are we wasting our time when we could become gods"?
Good question, if for no other reason than its a time-honored one. Humanity has been asking itself that same question as long as there have been human beings capable of doing so. Why be content with the constraints Nature has placed upon us if there's some way of slipping them. We may not be the sturdiest of Creation's children. Quite to the contrary, actually. When compared to many of Her other children, we're almost absurdly fragile. Yet, for all of that, we are without a doubt Her most clever offspring. We'll never be able to take Heaven by storm, to be sure, but there's always that dream of using our ingenuity to quietly slip through its gates; a fantasy so very compelling because, given our relative sophistication, it almost seems attainable.
We've aspired to become gods for a very long time, in almost every place we recognized the fundamental distinction between the mortal and divine. The Greek poets composed their lyrics about the dread halls of Hades where men, having given up their vitality, sank below and languished as mere shadows of what they once were. The ancient Hebrews, just as pessimistic as the pagans they reviled, shuddered at the thought of dim Sheol where the only thing remaining to the Dead were the fading memories of Life's beauty that had forever been lost to them. There may have been gods celebrating upon Olympus and Yahweh may have reigned in Heaven serenaded by hosts of angels, but the eternal joys allotted for Zeus and El were not meant for men.
Not a nice thought, is it?
Well, our race has always been one of exceptionally desperate dreamers. Shamans have ingested toxic plants, replete with substances with the power to kill if used with the slightest lack of care, for the sake of snatching just a glimpse of realms reserved for the spirits. Ascetics have relegated themselves to the harsh isolation of the wilderness hoping that, in extremis, they could hear a single note of the music the nymphs lavish upon the gods. The Christian martyrs, shuddering in anticipation of the frigid darkness of Hell, were willing to endure tortures far worse than those suffered by their deity if it meant the slightest chance of taking a place by his side.
Mortal men have their dreams of Paradise, and unlovable monsters have theirs. Both aspire to cheat the lot assigned to them by Nature, the former attempting to find some way of becoming like gods and the latter of experiencing what human beings take for granted. In both cases, failure is the only possible outcome. The shaman who tries to slip uninvited into the World of the Spirits is ultimately nothing more than a man hallucinating as he poisons himself with dangerous drugs. He may try to convince himself the glossolalia streaming from his lips is the language of angels but, when all is said and done, all that's actually issuing from his throat is gibberish and the vomit he'll eventually choke to death on. The monster can use all of his ingenuity to fashion an artificial mate. He'll swear with tears in his eyes he's finally achieved what every actual man takes for granted, that he at long last knows what it is to be desired, to hold and to be held with passion. Confronted with such a sight, humanity as a whole will look upon the pitiful display of a grotesque thing fucking an expensive doll, pretending to love and to be loved, and respond with collective laughter. Which is to be expected, I suppose. Just as human tragedy is regarded by the divine as comedy, so too is the humiliating agony of abominations a well-spring of mirth for men.
The gods were meant for Heaven, men for Earth and we monsters for Hell. Nature would never permit anything else. Sometimes, as the tiniest consolation, She'll provide us fleeting reveries, flights of fantasy during which we can imagine otherwise. If one can take brief solace in his drugs and dreams, whether he be man or monster, so be it. But never forget that every dream has to end, with each of one us waking up precisely where he belongs.
