Civilization has, indeed, become a slaughtering-car crowned by a grinning effigy of Comfort,
before which man blindly and voluntarily hurls himself in his own ignorance.
Eugen Sandow
Happiness, meaning, fulfilment and comfort different things. That is not to say that comfort has no place in happiness, but in general where there is comfort, there is very little purpose. Comfort lulu us to sleep and feeds upon itself. It devours and seeks more and more until that comfort turns to sloth.
We have become a slaughtering-car crowned by a grinning effigy of comfort. We travel up and down the highways and byways of life with a diminished sense of purpose and self worth, bowing down to progress and comfort. We bow down to the neon god we made and we obsess and create drama where there is no drama.
We got into the car voluntarily and blindly. It is easier to accept the ignorance and find the comfort of others than you stand alone with truth, uncomfortably, uncertainly and timidly. But it doesn’t matter if we got in voluntarily or how long we have journeyed along the way. What matters is that we have to get out. We have to exit the cave. We have to stop looking at pretty little shadows on the wall. We have to venture outside and face the light. Face the difficult but meaningful tasks that will present themselves to us at every turn.
The social contract of living and working together has its drawbacks. We have lost our way of contemplation. Even religion has sometimes become nothing more than a set of dogmas and apologies. We argue and bicker back and forth about what is right or what is wrong, but we don’t take much time at all to contemplate the meaning of our life, or what our heart would like to lead us to.
Follow your heart. Break from the shackles of an empty slaughtering-car, and embrace the effort and sacrifice you’ll be called to make to experience and create something that will be bigger than you. You have an opportunity to connect yourself to all of creation, not just watch a piece of it on television. You have an opportunity to be an actor in your own human drama, not just a mere spectator in a new pilot that no one will remember soon anyhow. You have a chance to be someone who you’ve dreamed of becoming, not just resign yourself to a life of quiet desperation.
You are not the sum total of your mistakes but your comfortable life acts like a baby pacifier. It keeps you from facing yourself, from facing your mortality, and most importantly, from facing what you can and should leave behind.
You are beautiful and great beyond any measure. It’s time to build a new effigy. One with an equally important grin. A grin of satisfaction and love. A grin that tells a story. A story we can’t wait and long to hear.
Go and write us a story.
