A Sense of Senselessness, But Only a Sense

In a very short period of time, one can lose more than one has ever imagined losing. It can come hard and go quite easily, leaving one with the feeling of having let it all slip through the fingers. Investing one's life - time, energy and resources - in building up that grand facade, that attractive amalgamation of what so many would call the the fruits of labor, would seem folly to the simple man, if only he were that simple.

To say his simplicity lies in a desire for nothing more than simple things, is a very simplistic way of looking at him as he languishes in exile. What he desires is generally not known to you because he doesn't have a voice to inform you of it; give him a voice and his declaration of what it is he truly wishes for will thunder across the chasm that separates you. Lay down a bridge across that divide and soon he will be at your doorstep, not in the most agreeable of moods.

It's not that you were wrong to want so much, to create a virtual world of endless comforts and amusements; surely, it's not that you walked across fields of bones to get to the gates of that great city.

So, how did it come to this?...

The Costs of Desire

"I was within a hair's breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed up -- he had judged. 'The horror!'"

-- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Those with a penchant for the dramatic or those who are given to emotional railings, refer to 'evil empires' while those who are a little more collected in their expressions of thoughts talk about 'imperial ambitions.' One could say that the desires of a nation can cause more devastation than the wants of a simple human being. One might also say that the desires of simple men and women come to be the collective desire of the country they call home.

Us and them. The little people and the giants. The oppressed and the oppressors. The ninety-nine percent and the one percent...

Me.

You.