Predatory Construction
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
- Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963
What does the man who has so much have left to be jealous of? That which is imaterial. It's very hard for me to understand how I manage to find things to be upset about, and I know it is so patronizing to hear me espouse about it. By all of other's standards I should be happy in the peaceful bliss of security. The freedoms it provides seem limitless to those outside, but I am still human and create conflict.
For a long time now I've known the things that will not make me truly happy. They are material, chemical, sexual, and technological in nature, but all act as means of imediate gratification. They serve to distract me from the conflict at hand, left to perpetuate or even worsen upon my return from any initial exuberance they might provide on a temporary basis. People become bound to these things everyday, and create their daily routines around such indulgences that come to dominate them. At least I am sure they dominate me. As means of escapism they serve a poor purpose, by binding us to this realm more corporally in each experience.
The problem it seems to be since the revelation is that I'm not sure what really does make me happy. 12 step programs, the kind designed to help free us of our destructive addictions to means of pleasure that bring no tangible solutions, almost always advise you to admit you are powerless and turn yourself over to a higher power. But a world absent of loving God is a hell of its own making, another intangible to yearn after. It does not give suffering meaning, which we ache to find in our finite journey through this realm.
Answers to questions only beg more questions with no real definite solutions. The rabbit hole grows deeper, and the unknown creates anxiety. In this some grow to face their challenges and learn no matter whether they fail or succeed. Others cower in the corner, reveling in ignorance and escape. Both may ultimately shape or destroy you.
In the mean, I am content to follow the middle way through this realm. In that which I know is wrong I can be a hypocrite, but to change is to sever my connection with a society whose ignorance allows suffering to persist. It may make me a collaborator the same, but it allows me to be constructive towards some intermediary solution. The best I can tell is that I am here to help my fellow man with no self-interest. Sharing the love I have is the most I have to offer, and the most I can ask for is to find it where it exists. On the path less traveled I can see the ugly waste of this parasitic species, pushed aside so that we need not witness what we are making of our world. Even then though, it can only upset me because I can see such beautiful things in my fellow man as their love is offered, establishing that another way is possible. It only takes effort, the recognition of a better possibility compelling us, to make it real.