« Reply #4 on: December 29, 2017, 09:00:04 PM »
What is it that defines a man’s greatness? Is it the causes of his notoriety? Is it the virtue of his actions, or the legacy he fathered? Is it the men he killed, the destinies he’s altered? Is it sufficient to be remembered in historical texts and to overcome the test of time? Could it be that the adoration we express in regal courts may not be so different from the one professed on our bloody knees?
What all great men have in common is their aspiration toward becoming Gods, the arrogance needed to believe in their apotheosis, the proselytization of their own cause and narrative through self-worship and contagion. If perfection is the idea which spawned our awareness of divinity, isn’t our innate desire for self-improvement a natural need to be sanctified? When the soldiers return from a campaign and the children gather to heed their arrival, do the boys not point and say “one day, I too will bear steel like them”? Do they not show adoration, do they not worship that which they desire to become?
Thus desire, ambition, sows the seed of divinity. On the other hand, the monk who renounces all desire out of devotion for a higher power merely humiliates himself before the possibility of his own greatness; how humble and virtuous self-denial indeed is. The gods we love the most are those who were once mortal, for they give us a glimpse of what we could ourselves become. We entertain their worship because we hope that they will elevate us to their side, but the gods did not wait for anyone to uplift them from the muck, they relied on themselves, they earned the admiration of others who pushed them up onto a pedestal in the sky. I do not propose that Man topples the idea of divinity out of spite for what he may be too weak to obtain, for a man is neither a god’s equal nor should he ever accept defeat, but Man does have the potential of elevating himself to the holy laurels upon which the object of his envy rests, all-powerful, all-knowing, and purely divine.
Envy. While it may not be the source of our desires, it is the inner compass with which we can recognize our needs and wants. Do not mistake it for jealousy, as jealousy is the fear of losing something we already possess. When a peasant sees that his neighbor has more than he does, he feels a string pull his heart toward that same thing. Envy – We are told that it is not virtuous to want what someone else has, but why? Does envy not give us the drive to seek solutions? Does it not give us the push needed to accept that we want and the possibility, the hope, that we too can have more? Is that intense, deep burning sensation not a direct guide to the path of divinity?
Desire and envy certainly appear to be self-centered drives to attain something as pure as Godhood, but Desire is the ultimate expression of free will, and the Gods teach us thus when they ask for worship, for temples and monuments to be erected in their names. It is their narcissism, their self-proclaimed greatness which inspires the creativity of the contemplative artist who paints frescoes on the ceiling of this or that church, or empowers the preacher with passion as he recounts the great deeds of his sanctified betters. If the Gods did not believe in themselves, neither would we believe in them.
But why do we have faith in them in the first place? It is not possible to have faith out of a sense of pragmatism, for such a sensation must resonate throughout the deepest, darkest corners of our soul. Faith, a profound sense of trust in the greater forces that surround us, too large for us to fully understand. Thus the question becomes “Why is it that we trust the divine?”
Well, the answer lies in the secret ingredient, the greatest act of heroism for which Man is fabled for, the act which renders him sacred: sacrifice.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2017, 09:08:15 PM by Kazbah »
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CBT aficionado since 2015.