Ah, the malleable minds of mankind. The things we get ourselves into. That burning desire for something to believe in. We must place ourselves on a much grander, complex plane of existence in order to function. We believe in God. We believe in government. We believe in global-warming. Humans have the innate inclination to constantly look for somewhere to place their faith. This is certainly an evolutionary benchmark. Why, if we are supposedly the most intelligent creatures to walk the earth, do we feel the need to compare and contrast our lives with the lives of mythical beings in ancient texts or dysfunctional celebrities?
We are all truly aware of our insignificance, that we are merely the players on the world’s vast stage. We realize that our lives are of little worth in the grand scheme of existence. So we must find value in our clumsy role in eternity. This is the focal point of religion. Man has sought hope, forgiveness, and answers from the heavens for thousands of years. Western civilization has in many ways shed the archaic Christian beliefs that once governed society as there has become less of a need for divine reassurance. Our vast, sprawling infrastructure dominated by good-old fashioned capitalism has given us a more dependable security blanket.
With this world brings the most shallow, putrid form of worship known to man. The media. A mechanical, dominating machine churning out lies and slander, quietly and boldly molding our habits and trends. Yet we eat it all up and beg for seconds. We shake our heads when we read about one of our noble leaders being involved in an illicit affair, yet we are the ones who vote the scoundrels into office based on the latest editorial in the newspaper. Appalled, we tell our kids not to end up doing drugs in a nightclub bathroom stall like Hollywood’s Latest Creation, yet we still grab a gossip rag in the grocery store checkout line and immerse ourselves in the lives of celebrities.
We hear about a poor, faceless child in a third-world country and flick a dime in a jar to help them, silently and shamefully glad that it’s not us with the flies in our eyes. We keep tabs on the lives of very-badly-behaved-young-ladies in the tabloids and turn up our noses at them. We throw up our arms and fall to our knees in worship of an omniscient, celestial power reigning from the heavens. Yet very few of us are comfortable with the idea of our lives being insignificant stitches in the fabric of time. Mortality. That someday all that we know and all we have created will be lost to history. This is not a comforting fact, but it is fact.
I myself have learned to believe in one thing and one thing only – absurdity. It is the only thing one can always put their faith in. Some people take it seriously and join the circus, while others gawk from the sidelines and laugh. People gain so much strength from their beliefs, but you can’t really be strong until you can see a funny side to things.
