An ancient myth tells us that in every time, the devil takes another piece of this world. That he strikes when people are so occupied with their built illusions deemed obvious and proper for their given culture and time, they can't see the source of the devil's music. They mistake it for their named enemies, never for a moment suspecting the source might be within their own belief systems. What has been called evil is really these very illusions, and the value we assign them, such that they are the last things we ever question. Maybe reason, maybe religion, maybe pop culture itself, we imbue so many aspects of the world we have collectively assembled and mutually defended with solidity and certainty and essential natures we almost always see them as a sign of our great advances over prior cultures and times. Yet in truth, they are nothing more than the latest constructs we have selected to stand as our truest deities - our own self-importance chief among them.
And now, the edifice begins to crumble, and we will gnash and moan and fail to see the dark energy spread through our denial and fear. This is how civilizations crumble. The Greeks called it hubris. What they failed to emphasize enough was a simple truth - hubris isn't merely found in heroes and emperors tilting at the gods. It is found in every one of us. And it has become epidemic.
NB, 2016
