A Perspective

There is a danger in knowledge. This has been known to us since Genesis, since that fatal taste of understanding. How can it be that evolution shapes mankind to its circumstance, when not one man understands his circumstances? We are but savages hiding behind telescopes. It was once said by Oscar Wilde that ‘The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.’ I understand this to be only half true, and in this we partially have disassociated ourselves from barbarians. Mankind must yield to temptation in order to fulfil particular wants, however if we resist it, our sense of morality copes with the loss, or else suppresses it. Those who follow neither path, and seek always to yield to temptation, are much like Wilde’s character Dorian Gray. They are a society who wishes to preserve a state of superficial ‘happiness’. Due to the limits of any generation of technology, this cannot be sustained. In essence, nature’s portrait is hidden in the attic; however its only cover is a translucent veil.  What seems most interesting is how vehement man is to discourage its savagery. There is rage in all men, a determination to survive. Those without this determination are the civilised. Most of course call them cowards, those that were unable to survive the horrific boredom of reality. The pointlessness of man’s existence is naturally common knowledge; those that seek to rise above are those that are truly happy.