THE ILLUSION OF VANITY
A child’s appetite for new toys appeal to the desire for ownership and appropriation: The appeal of toys comes to lie not in their use but in their status as possessions.
– CHRISTOPHER LASCH
All that we see around us and all that man has created is a testament to his human brilliance. The possessions made for pleasure alone are endless. Man is not an advanced creature that has crossed the evolutionary threshold of his past, dancing toward enlightenment because of his creations. The human has defined civility as a superior state of contemporary living and knowledge. To them, anything that does not retain the sophisticated tools at our disposal is uncivilized.
Uncivilized, by view of the majority of the sleeping masses, are the Bushmen of Africa, Australian Aborigines, or the Brazilian tribesmen that populate South America. The first world majority have come to believe that civility is the result of technological progress and a surplus of creature comforts. They are impervious to the fact that modernity has nothing to do with being civilized.
The social majority has found personal relevance in the accumulation of worldly goods and has made it a mark of stature for others to envy and respect. In America the poor are intimidated by the wealthy and unnecessarily look up to those with considerable financial means. Wealth and success is a fantastic thing; it is just the illusion that it’s created which is the transgressor in modern life.
The wealthy Souls that are good stewards of their hard earned success deserve everything that they accumulate. They are the providers of jobs, housing, and all the benefits we utilize and appreciate in our own lives. It’s not the wealth of caring Souls that is spoken of in this writing. What needs to be conveyed is the frivolity of our attempts to find who we are in the accumulation of unnecessary, vanity inducing worldly goods.
SoulKind know that we own nothing because we’re only visitors here. We don’t fall prey to clan consumerism with hopes that it will fulfill our desire to fit in or become more visible and relevant to others. The value of needless possessions and the desire for accumulation are difficult to get around. Humans are seeking to satiate themselves with these things in order to gain some impossible equivalent of what the Soul possesses. It covets what the Soul has…the beauty of immortality and oneness with God.
The human is a very selfish and controlling creature, and even deviant in its means of attempting to divest us of knowing what we are. It will stop at nothing to stay rampant and gluttonous in its craving in this world and it keeps demanding more. It knows that if we focus on accrual, a fixation on youth, and selfish endeavors, we will strengthen our addiction to the world and its habits. This will keep us from Illumination, the bane of the human appetite.
A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.Epicurus
The difficulty with moderation and balance is because we are cyclically influencing each other by covetousness and pride. For a significant portion of society, illusionary items are their lifeline and means of feeling valuable. Even if some people don’t fit in, their debt ridden habits hypnotize them to the point of financial devastation.
The inability to fit in can be deadly to some. They begin to struggle for acceptance through whatever means possible. Many would rather medicate themselves than strive for Illumination or make the attempts necessary for inclusion. This is just a small part of the confusion that plagues society today.
Sensual accelerants also fuel the humans drive to remove one from purpose. They are a siren’s scream that afterwards echoes continuously until you give in to it again. You concede due to the desire for abatement. You also seek to silence the screams this way, not realizing the repercussions are the human’s unquenchable flame being stoked by a branch laid on the fire.
Many people have particular accelerants that have crossed the threshold of moderation into human gluttony. Whether it is eating, smoking, sexual urges, television, internet, drinking, medication, etc., each human has a thorn that steadily pokes at them until they give in so the urge will subside. The physical world is only perceived through the senses we have to experience it. Due to the inundation of so many unhealthy sensual items, there are indulgences for every sense that are readily accessible at almost any time.
The problem that arises from these illusionary pleasures is that they are ideal devices for keeping one asleep if the human is allowed to experience them in excess. Unnecessary items accrued for the sake of vanity are all illusionary because they have no concrete qualities or depth. They are just income destroying trophies of conceit.
All of us have our struggles and even the most Awake can submit to them, but the sleepwalker has the hardest time of all. They lack the insight necessary that helps them refrain from overindulgence. The world exists so we can experience all that it has to offer our senses but we must do so without advancing into hedonism. Moderation and personal ethics are built in deterrents that exist so we can have the most joyous adventure possible.
Humans want to wail and gnash their teeth; they want to live in a state of want, need, theatricality, and overindulgence. They will do anything to rationalize a means of keeping it going. Your human DOES NOT want you to be Illuminated. Why would it? It wouldn’t be allowed its instinctual dissatisfaction anymore, which is exactly what it fights to retain.
The human’s happiness is founded on its drive for achieving more. Those that believe they live in a state of freedom from sensual accelerants can, on the opposite end, do so because they seek more stature. Many that become monastic or vagabonds do so because they are presumably giving up the burdens of the world. In actuality they are searching for more enlightenment or more understanding of their place in the world (not a bad thing with proper insight). This can be just as dangerous as the accrual of worldly goods.
The unaware can easily take too much pride in what they’ve given up. Spiritual snobbery is just another illusionary vanity wrapped in the cloak of false modesty. Whatever you incorporate for the sake of relevance is wasting your time and resources. Unfortunately nothing will feed the body’s appetite to the point of satiation; nothing.
Books of reference:
Ishmael: Daniel Quinn