Material goods give the illusion that we are in control. We further remove ourselves from reality when we control our surroundings through such things as managing building temperatures and lighting. We shut the blinds to block out natural light, maybe to avoid glares on screens, for example. We shut out the natural world.
We build illusions around ourselves until we’ve boarded up all the windows and no one or nothing can enter. We detach ourselves from life, from death, and from the reality of our mortality.
But why? If humans are such meek, faltering beings, why do we prize man-made possessions more over nature, a perpetually moving entity that doesn’t even need humans to sustain itself?
We board ourselves in until, as far as we can see, we are the rulers of our own lives. Until nothing can destroy our throne. At least that’s what we allow ourselves to believe. Little do we know, thanks to the comfort we’ve created, the storm is brewing. We refuse to look outside, because nothing can smash us. We are in control.
I have a funny feeling that forces we can’t touch win. That that storm will smash our illusions any day, and we won’t know it’s coming, because we can’t see it with all our falsities towered around us. We won’t hear it, because we’ve deafened ourselves with the distractions of controlling comfort levels with things that keep us from our own thoughts and questions. We don’t question. We don’t ask right or wrong, left or right. We just follow. Blindly, for that matter. Life wins, even while we’re sitting in a box with our eyes shut.
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Peter Atkinson said:
Preferably you will choose strongly built man-made possessions so that the storm will have a tough time.
Possessions allow people to know what they are. A cell phone holds no mysteries for the user, so they are comfortable in complete knowledge that it won’t fail for an inconsolable reason. But nature is a mystery, we can say that plants use chlorophyll and that it gives them their green color, but we haven’t the slightest idea as to how they convert it to energy. Mystery has always perplexed man, but when we have to come in close contact with it on a daily basis,we become uncomfortable with it, preferring to be reassured in the boring, predictable ways of material goods.
I found a word that can sum up the idea of the tower we build up around ourselves:
Complacency: self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.
The tower of possessions blocks all dangers from our sight, making us unaware of the forces that may well topple the wall around us, burying us in its ruins.
May 5, 2008 @ 7:53 pm
Anastasia said:
Depressing, but true. It’s always good to take a retreat into the woods or the mountains, or somewhere away from buildings and electronics, just to teach us that we shouldn’t rely upon them. Our “creations” are weak because we are weak.
May 6, 2008 @ 5:48 pm