Posted on 30 September 2023, by Kevin Mora
It is not a strange fact that, in a world plagued with irrational hatreds that threaten civilization itself, people (old and young) detach themselves wholly or partially from the angry current of daily life to devote themselves to the cultivation of beauty, the extension of knowledge, the cure of disease, and the reduction of suffering, as if fanatics were not also engaged in spreading pain, ugliness, and suffering. The world has always been a sad and perplexing place, but poets, artists, and scientists have neglected the forces that, if otherwise addressed, would paralyze them.
We hear over and over that ours is a materialistic age, with the major issue being the greater dispersion of material items and global prospects. The justified outcry of those who are denied opportunity and a fair share of worldly goods through no fault of their own diverts an increasing number of students from the academic pursuits that their parents had attempted to the equally important and no less urgent study of social, economic, and governmental problems - I have no objections to this tendency. The only reality to which our senses can attest is the one in which we live and unless a better, fairer world is created, millions will continue to die silently, sorrowful, and disheartened.
Now and then, I wonder if that current has become too strong, and if there would be enough opportunity for a full life if the world were stripped of some of the useless things that give it meaning of any kind; in other words, whether our conception of what is useful has become too narrow to be adequate to the wandering and capricious possibilities of the human thought.