Sunday, June 17, 2012

People don't like the desert.

And I've just about convinced myself that the primary reason for that is because the desert permits, nay demands, deep and considered thought.

And the great majority of people do not like deep and considered thought, not because it's difficult, or because they cannot do it at all, but because a deep and thoroughgoing consideration of things leads you to quite a few of the darker, more unpleasant corners of existence.

People would much rather not have to deal with any of that.

And so they surround themselves with as much sound, as much distraction, as much interruption, as much shallow mindless fluff and "entertainment," and as much phony promise of everlasting life through half-baked religious dogma as they possibly can.

In this way, the dark thoughts, the hard truths, the unpleasant realities can never intrude into the Fool's Paradise that they have walled themselves inside of.

The desert, in contrast, speaks plainly about the transience of life, about the ultimate end of all those objects that people use to define themselves with, about the doom that silently, patiently awaits.

They say that "Life will find a way," and they're right, but the desert knows that in the end, the desert will be all that remains.

And sometimes it's good to reacquaint ourselves with this knowledge, lest we become hopelessly disoriented and lose track of where we are, where we're going, and what we're here for.