You have offered us three ripe fruit, ripen by years of cultivation, natural selection. We are ruined as we eat this sweet sweet fruit yet its taste, so sweet, does intoxicate.
The first fruit is called wealth. This master is no stranger to men. Developed countries have modelled their entire education system, economy and even measure of well-being on this numerical value to which we have attached great significance. Developing countries hurry to get into the rat race. They get loans to kickstart them on this great journey of acquiring treasure. Their debts are larger than they ever earn. Oh how know, O World, money makes you go round.
Our second vice is nonsense. This generic label is designed to encompass eveyhing that money can buy you as well as everything that catches your mind, fancy, whim in a game of tug of war where we fight for time to indulge in our addiction. The world wide web is heralded as one of the greatest inventions ever in the 20th century and my friends, what a marvelous web! How many souls it has entangled, have many lives have been lost, both metaphorically and physically. People have died neglecting their functions and needs to play computer games. Marriages are lost to pornography. students are frazzled unfocused beings who are under the illusion that the more browsers open the greater a multitasker and a great multitasker is deemed to be a feat of great accomplishment. Is it really?
The last vice of this earth is romance. Not love, for love is not to be scoffed at, but romance. What a grip romance has on us. How it captures our attention. And how it captures the attention of others. Jaded people are those who have been bitten by the stinging venom of romance, but I wouldn't be so quick to say once bitten, twice shy. We love it. We love this chemistry, this vibe, this look, this feeling, this "us" that seems so wonderful that all tragedy ensues when it ends only to begin again with YET ANOTHER one-and-only.
And so world how clever you are. How powerful are the vices with which you hold us in a death-like grip.
The poor strive to be rich, the rich swim in nonsense, and everybody wants to fall in love.
How clever you are, O World, how brilliant is your genius. You only need let us run our course, fulfil our own desires and there you have us in your hand: the facilitator turn jailor, though of course your prisoners seem in no hurry to leave. How clever, how clever, how clever you are.
No comments:
Post a Comment