"Once I built an ivory tower so I could worship from above
When I climbed down to be set free, she took me in again"
The fundamental human lie is this one:
"And on the sixth day, God created man in his own image"
This is the foundation from which every other lie since human inception derives. If someone didn't come up with this fantasy right away, someone else would have. Add in a few hundred pages on how to properly prepare an unblemished goat for sacrifice and you've got an all time bestseller. Human arrogance is only matched in magnitude by human ignorance. At the particle level there's more complexity in a blade of grass than the human mind can comprehend, but the invisible God created us in his own image. Where to begin...
Don't get me wrong, God created humankind, but our existence is the only proof I can offer. I posit that God gave man ego precisely so man would think he's God. Why? So we would self-destruct on a regular basis. We would rise and we would fall over and over again. Hubris is hard-wired into our DNA. Each generation starts out thinking that it's invincible and has to learn for itself. Old men on the other hand, are too proud to admit they know next to nothing. Therefore the wisdom never gets passed down from generation to generation. Higher learning yes. Overcoming innate human fallibility, no.
Why did Aristotle not tell us any of this? A young man knows everything and an old man is too proud to admit he's a fool. Only someone who has scaled the heights and then crashed back to the lows realizes the role of luck in life. Taking into account where we are born, when we are born, and our parents' socioeconomic status, accounts for 99% of success. Conning IBM into giving monopoly status to your operating system accounts for the full 100%. The hardest working people get paid the least.
There are no "great men", there are only lucky men who occupy corner offices directing the lives of their obedient peons. The "great people" are the ones who get up every day go to work, grow the food, nurse the sick and fix the roads. Toiling in obscurity for next to nothing.
The soaring is now, next comes the crash. And then we return to Zion.
Buckle up, it's a long way down and not everyone comes out the other side. Their one-way trip is over.
Buckle up, it's a long way down and not everyone comes out the other side. Their one-way trip is over.
