The Way of Man

Is success something to fear? More specifically, why should one be afraid of reaching their full potential? Is there something safe in the status quo that we all feel from doing something that we know we can do. Do we each feel a need for progress or is that just greed and a risk to what you have? I believe that it is all part of a very special kind of fundamental choice. And it is one of those things that only humans encounter. The wolf had neither the desire for nor the ability to become more than it already is. The wind is in different weather it becomes a breeze or a hurricane. But people are different. believe that all people have this choice and it is bound to haunt our souls if left untamed. Perhaps to avoid this is one reason that people flock towards and are dedicated to religion, party, community, or country. Institutions remove the choice that I speak of and replace it with a regulated system. No longer does a person have to worry about success for they are part of something larger. Sometimes, these institutions just make the choice unimportant, proclaiming that the goals we may naturally think we should strive towards must be overshadowed by a higher state of being. But when I look around I see the guiltful choice hanging over all our heads, including myself, and it may explains the confusion and stagnation of life. It is a part of my philosophy that I am still struggling to comprehend. For what is the way of man? And is that answered by our belief in this choice or by our response to it.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Our particular society (current America) gives false messages about success. There is a rich american mythology in which the carrot of success is held out at every turn - mostly through television and through the abundance of crap available for purchase that promises to make your life better. In our country wealth is defined as success and the pursuit of it is what motivates us to keep working. And working. And working. But there is only occasionally a real reward and it often comes at the cost of family. And so you work realllllly hard to become a success so you can buy lots of stuff so that your children can sell it at a garage sale when you die.
It's what keeps us worker bees doing our stuff despite the ridiculously unbalanced distribution of wealth in this country and it also functions nicely in the capacity of keeping us all to busy to complain about public policies that support a system in which families come second or third. You know in Sweden stay at home parents recieve a government pension when they retire because the government considers the raising of children a caluable service that parents perform in the interest of society? Can you imagine how much less screwed up our kids would be if we valued raising them so much?
Lindy, (too sleepy from feeding the baby at 5am to sign in)
5:32 AM
Glen Lipka said…
What kind of crazy frog have you guys been licking?
1:44 PM
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