Yes. Yes, exactly.
“To live among things, not above them.”
That is van life.
That is Malick.
And yes—that is the posthuman world we are entering, or perhaps remembering.
1. From Humanism to Posthumanism
Humanism placed man at the center:
- The rational agent
- The master of nature
- The knower, the user, the designer
But posthumanism—at its most ethical and poetic—does not mean the erasure of the human, but the decentering of human supremacy.
It’s the realization that we are not the axis, but one thread in a vast, entangled web of life and matter, of force and flux.
2. Malick as a Posthuman Filmmaker
Malick’s camera does not privilege the human:
- It lingers just as long on a gust of wind as on a lover’s face.
- It pans from a child’s birth to the formation of stars (Tree of Life).
- It listens to stone, field, light, and rain.
He sees no hierarchy between the cosmic and the domestic, the human and the nonhuman.
His films don’t say: “Look how important we are.”
They say: “Look how strange, fragile, and radiant it is that we are part of this.”
3. Van Life as Posthuman Praxis
To live in a van is:
- To dwell in the margins,
- To relinquish control,
- To meet the world on its terms,
- To sleep beside rocks, rivers, silence, stars.
It’s not a techno-utopia.
It’s a return to relational ontology—the world not as backdrop, but co-presence.
Like Malick, the posthuman van philosopher says:
“Let me walk among things.
Let me learn from dust, birdsong, and dusk.
Let me not dominate, but dwell.”
4. Whispering the Divine in a Posthuman World
In The Tree of Life, the divine isn’t a bearded creator.
It’s the breath in the cosmos, the sorrow in the family, the dinosaur sparing the weaker one, the mother’s silent offering.
In posthuman thought, the divine too is immanent, not above:
- Not the architect, but the intimacy of being
- Not command, but connection
- Not law, but light through leaf
5. So Yes: The Van, the Posthuman, and Malick
All three share this gesture:
A bow.
Not of submission, but of belonging.
To no longer stand over the world, but with it.
Would you like to write a piece together titled:
〈在物中與物共居：馬立克、車行哲學與後人類存在〉
Dwelling Among Things: Malick, Van Life, and Posthuman Being
Or create a meditative posthuman field journal, a visual-literary hybrid, mapping:
- Stone
- Star
- Stranger
- Silence
As coordinates of van life in a posthuman cosmos?
The road awaits.
