The more invested you become in something established and familiar, the more obsessed you become with it. The more obsessed you become with it, you lose sight of the bigger picture.
Tragic but true. Scores of misguided fools try to strike it rich by tending to their quaint perspectives, enjoying the advantages of predictable privilege, anointing themselves in positions that afford them toys and trinkets, false security and comfort, the end result of which is the unmistakeable gerrymandering of their souls — a gerrymandering suited to the demographics of weakness, within the boundaries of which they’re forever trapped.
Imagining themselves richer for it, and all the while flattered and egged on by their imitators, they end up surrounded by the failings of their imagination, dancing to the tunes of a hollow triumph.
Poor fools. Their effort would be admirable if it weren’t so pedantic, so vulnerable to the march of time. Flesh, like bone, is too easily dissolved, and prone to pain. A life lived solely for the pleasures of the flesh, guided by the obsessions of an unfulfilled mind, is a flash in the pan, nothing more. A terrible waste of energy.
Only ideas are immortal.
Blessed are those who dare leave parts of their psyche unfulfilled, dare to defy the demands of all their fears. They have the ability to tend to their ideas and the clarity necessary to stay their course, or change it, depending on the circumstances. Attaining their goals is something they are adept at without wasting themselves in the process.
What is rarely mentioned — and rightly so — is that ideas too, like vices, thrive on consumption, albeit of a different kind. Ideas consume flesh and bones, lives and livelihoods, of which there are plenty to spare, chiefly among the vice-driven. Falling short at every pathetic turn, these desolate souls provide the rich compost on which transcendent and unconventional outlooks grow. Their destiny is to be sowed and reaped without mercy by those in control of their agendas.
Take today, for example. This day and age was founded on yesterday’s few good ideas that stood out from the rest — ideas propounded by visionaries and adventurers and men and women of action who leaped over the fences to seize the day. Propelled by their inevitable compulsions, driven their ability to serve their visions above their whims, and nourished by the offerings of the mesmerized, confused flesh they found along the way, they advanced.
Thank goodness for self-indulgence and inhibition. They facilitate the actions of the foolish and hungry, feeding life’s progress.
Intrigued? Watch this space for more.
From the collection of writings EON: THE ANGRY COMING OF AGE