Because ultramatter is ever decaying, existence is beset by the pervasive intrusions of vulnerability. Thusly bereft, nihilism may seem to offer relief since its abyss can partially mask the quiet desperation of this carnal bondage. However, the diversion of nil leads inevitably to the withdrawal unto negativity. To affirm the positive, existence must embrace the congruence of ultramateriality and vulnerability, since it is their fusion, which gives tangibility to time within the matrix of eternity. Because ultramatter is the surplus, which flows from matter, it is suspended between the material and the spiritual. Caught between the timelessness of inert matter and the eternity of the divine, it is mandated by its destiny to reach, compelled by its inner calling to bridge the metaphysical gap, which separates the material and the spiritual. Striving is, therefore, not only a natural unfolding of its being, it is also the quintessential ethos that each of us must take to heart in order to confirm our own humanity.
Confronted by this divide, philosophers and theologians sought to traverse the metaphysical gap through transcendence. Temporality was regarded as a negative from which the spirit must be liberated. Their viewpoint, however, failed to take account of a decisive factor. Temporal attachment binds care to living substance. Bound by its own mortality, the human spirit cannot transcend into indifference. Consequently, if ever the gap between the material and the spiritual were to be bridged, then desire must first fall unto matter. Not only must care not distance itself from existence, but existence must embrace the carnality within. It is in that embrace by which life’s destitutions are transformed into the empathy of compassion. Through affirmation rather than denial, vulnerability leads not to the downward drift of nil, but to the uplift of free will.
In the spring of existence, life’s vulnerabilities can be obscured by the effervescent promises of potentialities. Those glittering promises must fall like leaves, before our inner souls are able to appreciate autumn’s churning of temporality. Only when life has tasted bitters can understanding understand that when one suffers, one suffers as all living things — immersed in the anonymous flesh of living
substance. Through immersion within that flesh, humanity comes to care. Through immersion within that anonymity, we awaken unto the embrace for Otherness. Care is the very first virtue because it lays the foundation for the others. A stone cannot be virtuous, for it cares not. God is not virtuous, since divine indifference is outside time. Care compels ultramateriality to overflow into existence. It is by that overflow that inert matter is consecrated into living substance. The fallen angels are the ultimate embodiment of ultramateriality, for they step back not from their destiny of vulnerability. They are the absolute icons of care, since their embrace of vulnerability is sustained by force of elemental empathy. Their immersion within the destiny of falleness is the timeless affirmation that hope indeed springs eternal, even as existence falls into temporality.