"Why are children actually born?" Justin received me.

He was 26 years old, studied computer science and mathematics, was inquisitive with a quick wit and the son of rich parents who allowed him to grow up in a liberal and non-denominational way.

We met regularly in a small bistro.

"How did you come up with this question?"

"I once heard the expression: 'You had given birth to a child.' I don't understand that."

"Which is spoken of as a gift?"

"The term seems inappropriate to me."

"You mean the producers gave themselves the gift?"

"Yes, because her feelings drove her to it. If the child had not been born, it would have been spared the whole range of positive and negative experiences.

And – I heard from a 13-year-old whose serious cancer illness would only let him live a few months: 'I am grateful that I was allowed to live.'”

"Well, yes," I nodded, "at the very beginning of every new life, a chain of feelings is activated that strives for life."

"I.e. so once you're conceived, you're in the grip of life. It only lets go of you when you die.

Life is not about knowledge. But to create the midpoints of survival and offspring.”

Justin continued, "Why do humans even produce children? Although they should know that by doing so, they are begetting death. Because everyone has to die sometime. But mainly to satisfy her feelings. Because the desire to have children can be incredibly strong.

It's incredible what people can do to have a child."

“Like you said, this is what feelings push you to do. That way it's not seen as something negative,” I said. "And – just ask the children if they like to live and aren't happy that they were born," I argued.

"As you just pointed out, they will of course say yes," he replied. "Because they are at the center of the life instinct."

Life may still offer such horrible events as wars, natural disasters, devilish diseases, times of absolute need and the most terrible horror. Everything is repressed after a short time. Attention diverges and children keep being born.”

This is how Justin explained that the midpoints in people when it came to be getting children made sure that death and suffering did not enter their consciousness at the time of procreation. The focal points here were: sexuality, continuation of one's own sex, nursing instinct, the desire to realize one's ideas.

"Then having children is self-serving for you?" I asked further.

"Yes. That's how I see it. People care about their own interests and feelings.”

Although I thought I knew the answer, I asked:

"Who would benefit if no more children were born?"

"The unborn. It would save them suffering and death.”

"Who would possibly beget no more children through this insight?"

"People who can see through the urge for young people and have the strength to draw conclusions from it."

"If everyone thinks like that, wouldn't humanity die out?"

"You know it's impossible. The center of life instinct is much too strong for that.

It occurs to me," Justin continued thoughtfully, "that there have always been people, especially from the religious camp, who wanted to "redeem" mankind.

In history, of course, no one has managed to do this, because that would probably only be possible by renouncing offspring.

For as long as life is born, there will be death and suffering.”

"So an 'eternal life' would not be an aim worth striving for?"

"No."

He looked thoughtfully out of the window.

“I have often asked myself the question: where does humanity want to go, what does it actually want to achieve?

A state of peace, freedom, harmony, salvation?

If you think consistently and go through life with open eyes, you will see that this is impossible in the long run.

History is characterized by self-interest - of the individual, of the groups, of the peoples. This is human nature. Certainly there have been many attempts to bring people onto the path of salvation. But all of these attempts ended in failure in the end.”

"If this view were to become known and conscious, could not many people, especially women, get into a painful conflict, for example with regard to their caregiving instinct, which they could not live out without children?"

"Yes. You have a choice to submit to the feelings created by evolution or to follow the simple insight I outlined.

But renouncing children will certainly not occur because, as I said, the focus of the drive to live is overpowering.

As a rule, people cannot act against their feelings here. And they don't even want to.

Seen in this way, living beings are also slaves to their aims.”

"But doesn't everyone ultimately have to decide for themselves whether they want to father children, or not?" I asked.

"Of course," Justin replied. “I just wanted to make people aware of the problem and possible consequences.

Everyone should act according to their inner values. And here, as with all living beings, the offspring has a particularly high value.”

Well, I thought, that was Justin's opinion. However, it was an utterly outlandish view that I had never heard before.

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