The philosophy of materialism replies to the question
of “What really matters in life?” with
one answer, “Hedonism is the answer to
every question that has satisfaction somewhere in the middle…” Such a
philosophy declares to the entire world that mankind is a slave to his schemes of
endlessly seeking for satisfaction. It openly confesses that he cannot save
himself from the pleasure he indulges in or creates, nor can he redeem his soul
from the influence of affluence; thus copying and pasting into our present
times the timeless mentality theme of money being man’s main source of
contentment – a driving force that keeps pushing him towards itself…
I don’t mind that money is important, because it is
important. Money is special and important. I don’t question the power and
potential it carries, because it is what it is – it has potential. And power. Even
the Bible says so. Money has power – a power that increases with its accumulation;
but a closer observation into the affairs of the present world – and the past
ages too - forces us to understand (or misunderstand) the question of wealth
(money), pleasure, intellectualism, meaning and satisfaction. The many things
we may learn or might have learnt as life shoots before us may teach us (or
might have taught us) facts on hedonism that have a broken tail and with no
head in view; but if present, confused all through… The question of what I
value most in my life today is wanting. I may not even know what I really want.
Many accept and appreciate that without questioning. It is common nowadays. It
seems normal not to know where I am coming from or where I am going to. I am
excused not be sure of what really drives my life. I am allowed not even care
to know. That is the life we experience in we people who live today – a life
without meaning and direction – and we all seem so okayed with it; but eventually, we find out that life succumbs
right before us and we sooner than later are drying and dying and diminishing
and ending into frailty day by day, thanks to the lack of knowledge of what we
are doing or why we are doing what we
are doing.
Deeper
within, the life fact is that something somewhere should more important than
everything else in our lives, even if we can’t definitely speak out the to’s and fro’s of our deepest beings –
even if it is so loudly unspoken… and
that unspoken words speak loudest… - that
very essence of such an existence screams so loud into our ears that we may end
up being scared that it is us being
addressed, thus destruct us from
getting in touch with reality… Money haunts us most – the lack or presence of
it. It haunts us most. Money loves us most – the pull and push of it. It is our
conflict and our resolution. Somehow, every part of today’s world hovers around
money. To get it. To have it. To use it. To maneuver through times with (and
by) it. To just be moneyed… It may be
true that the voiceless noises of poverty have killed our right view of how good
money is or the search for it, and also deviated our optimism towards gaining
it… Such a poor thing that makes people “rich”…
And schooling has just made it worse - meet a young
man (or young woman in any case) and ask them why they go to school. They may
(or may not) answer you back with the accent of superiority of learnedness to
illiteracy. They may imply to you that it is constructive - and it is. We value
education. It is good to be educated. Intellectualism
has become our greatest ego booster. But
neither education or shear intellectualism has the capacity to fill the vacuums
created by lack of true knowledge and wisdom. They are only but fluff in the
game of wisdom.
But get me right on this one. I am neither complaining
(or hating) about education nor wealth nor pleasure; but about the vision
thereof and the attitude compounded in such crimsons. I am not against
intellectualism, because what you read here is a result of such strives. But I
am just loudly wondering why we at all have to crown our educational abilities
as the main source of a better status in
life… I am just wondering why we should think that being educated makes us run into a “better” world… No wonder one
Malcolm Muggeridge wrote
and said, “We have educated ourselves
into imbecility”. We live lives intertwined with philosophies. Philosophies
of wealth and money. We live like philosophies. Philosophies of well-being and
aptness. We think philosophies. We imagine philosophies. We create some and
trash some, but always live many – empty philosophies. We are proud of
intellectualism because education is a philosophy on its own – that which owns our
minds and twists all rounds of our thinking. We were born into the present
generation thinking of and knowing that education
has all that we need for our future. We have become lazy in factualism and positive
dialectics, but have adopted argument and “policy thinking” as our sources of what is right. Many of our lives somehow
hang on one word or another breathed out of the mouths of gurus and nerds teaching us in the lone class of “respect-cum-honor
bound fellas”.
Such lives as described above leave us with so many
‘if only’s’. We live in the ‘if-only’ era. An era that values words and
thoughts of our own and of fellow men than those of a well intended source. We
always will regret later. Yes we will. Our relationships are always held on the
loose. Our relationship with God. And with fellow men. And with friends. And
with our spouses. And with ourselves… they fade away slowly and we end up realizing
that we can’t even meet ourselves anywhere – all at the expense of loving money
and education. Broken relationships. Divorces. Emptiness. Broken selves.
Forgotten selves. The price for highly regarding hedonism and intellectualism
is quite expensive. Time has proved it thus. We will be heard crying, “If only
I had known” or “If only I had done this or that…” We should not allow it to
happen to us too late in the game of life, because those questions are always
asked with a lot of bitterness in the heart and with fear and failure furiously
staring us in the face… And we may never have the answers right then. We may
never manage to deal with the reality of things…
I am not ashamed to confess that so many of us today
can’t unblinkingly answer that question up there with confidence and without
mentioning money or status somewhere between – just as the philosophy of
materialism depicts. We tend to say, “My name is Bonface Morris Otunga, I studied
(or study) bla bla bla, at bla bla bla with the likes of bla bla bla, I hold a bla bla bla in… I work at bla bla bla… I live at bla bla bla…” and the story is endless… That
has inseparably become our definition of us.
Titles. Names. Status. Power. Origin. Education. Ego. It has become who we are.
They have become who we are. Right? Yeah,
all those are cool. They should be there. They are meant to be there. But what
carries most of the weight of our definition of us is who we remain to be to our families, friends, spouses (or
boyfriend/girlfriend) and most important, to God. Having the titles and taking care of our relationships is
what should be our goal- our ultimate goal. Striking the balance between all
this is what determines how well we can define who we really are and what is really
important to us; and if at all what we believe in is meaningful to all…
In Foundations of Achievement (A character development
program by John E. Schrock), under the Management Principle of Debt, he writes
and says, ”You cannot be happy by being
independent. We were designed to be relational…” and C. S. Lewis
once said, “Prosperity
knits a man to the World. He feels that he is "finding his place in
it," while really it is finding its place in him....
Two songs I do wish you would listen to:
“Identity” by Lecrae (ft. Da’ T.R.U.T.H. & JR) and
“Fantasy” by Da’ T.R.U.T.H. (ft. JR)…
So once again, “What
is really important… to you?”
Morris.
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