Useless People
They are the ones who have no economic reasons for being. Today's world is all about money and youth and beauty and power and excellence. You see banner headlines screaming: The year's most beautiful women, The most eligible bachelor, Oscar award-winning actors and producers as if these were the only things that this world is made of. Everyone wants to be a god or a goddess of beauty, sports, achievement. Great wealth awaits those who climb above the rest and be better than the best of them. The promise of extreme pleasure and gratification beckons to all who would desire the dream.
What about being ordinary? Or being less than ordinary? What of those who have tasted the fruit of success and who got kicked in the gut by vice and weakness? We have TV series about them too. "Where are they now?" Fame and fortune are hard taskmasters. No on lives forever. Even Charlton Heston who in his prime cut a more than heroic figure, a man sent by God himself . Look at him now in the twilight of his life and I see a mere caricature of a gun-toting Moses. I am sure he thinks of himself as making a difference in this world and that his point of view is a shoulder above the rest. He holds a rifle like he held a staff to part the Red Sea. It's a hollow, pathetic figure that I see even though I am sure there are many who believe he would lead them to the promised land of gun-ownership.
Does man have an intrinsic value? Or does he have to be rich and famous to have a meaningful life? What of those who have nothing to claim as their legacy? I remember the Poem Ozymandiaz which speaks of a gigantic foot in the desert proclaiming his power and glory to all who would see. Nothing remains of his monument except a foot which crows: "look upon me and tremble". The sands of the desert has obliterated his greatness and all he has left are hollow words which could not prevent the inexorable march of entropy.
Do useless people have intrinsic value? Those who have no econimic reasons for being? Are they to be kicked aside like dogs in the streets? Does Mother Teresa see something which I cannot see?
What about being ordinary? Or being less than ordinary? What of those who have tasted the fruit of success and who got kicked in the gut by vice and weakness? We have TV series about them too. "Where are they now?" Fame and fortune are hard taskmasters. No on lives forever. Even Charlton Heston who in his prime cut a more than heroic figure, a man sent by God himself . Look at him now in the twilight of his life and I see a mere caricature of a gun-toting Moses. I am sure he thinks of himself as making a difference in this world and that his point of view is a shoulder above the rest. He holds a rifle like he held a staff to part the Red Sea. It's a hollow, pathetic figure that I see even though I am sure there are many who believe he would lead them to the promised land of gun-ownership.
Does man have an intrinsic value? Or does he have to be rich and famous to have a meaningful life? What of those who have nothing to claim as their legacy? I remember the Poem Ozymandiaz which speaks of a gigantic foot in the desert proclaiming his power and glory to all who would see. Nothing remains of his monument except a foot which crows: "look upon me and tremble". The sands of the desert has obliterated his greatness and all he has left are hollow words which could not prevent the inexorable march of entropy.
Do useless people have intrinsic value? Those who have no econimic reasons for being? Are they to be kicked aside like dogs in the streets? Does Mother Teresa see something which I cannot see?
posted by underdog @ 2:17 AM
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