The Devil's Due

I was born in 1951, which doesn't seem all that long ago in the overall scheme of things, but I'll tell you... either I'm an incurable societal misfit, a lumbering dinosaur who slept through the Ice Age, or from another planet.

Almost daily, some one or some thing shocks the crap out of me as yet another example of how much we seem to respect, revel in - and celebrate with relish - flat-out rudeness, egotism, self pre-occupation and aggrandizement, thoughtlessness, and sheer decadence.

I won't divulge today's example here... instead, let me start with yesterday's...

Apparently, Reality Shows such as Big Brother, Survivor, Bridezillas, The Houswifes of [insert name of some posh and ultra-snobby suburb here], and America's Next Top Model, to name but a few already being aired and eaten up with a spoon, are simply not enough to satisfy our voyeuristic appetite for Nacissim of the Third Kind. To that end, Follywood is offering up yet another serving in the form of a new show that tells us all about how spoiled-silly wealthy people go about spending millions of dollars on outrageously over-the-top-parties. How is it possible that so many people so richly blessed in this world could be so completely indifferent to the suffering of their fellow man as to so blatantly flaunt such massive investments in self-indulgence and showmanship? Where are their heads? Where are there souls?

Even among the ranks of the "middle class" and "lower middle class", a collective decline in compassion, civility, empathy, respect for others - even the smallest semblance of etiquette and common courtesy - grows ever more apparent. It may be evidenced a bit less lavishly than the manner in which wealthy folks might demonstrate, but it is there, just the same. We're growing ever more rude, thoughtless, and utterly oblivious to the devastating impact of our resulting thoughts, words, and deeds on the lives and well-being of our fellow man. We resolve issues with anger, violence, cruel words, and insults... and ever increasingly regard ourselves as wholly justified in doing so. We worship at the Altar of the Pecking Order and grow morbidly spiritually obese feasting on others' rejection, failure, misery, and pain. Instead of "There but for the grace of God go I", "What a LOSER!" now seems a far more popular societal mantra. We are no longer the "We" generation... we are the "ME" Generation. Worst of all, we hold in utter disdain the very people we've most grievously injured in the mindless pursuit of what WE want or consider ourselves entitled to.

Well, folks... for those of us with our heads embedded that far up our own smug behinds, let's remember one thing...

Like it or not, everything about worldly acquisitions and status is temporary. Should you live to be a hundred years old... in the end, that period of time is a but blink of God's eye. Those we haughtily regard as the "lowliest" among us will carry no less with them beyond the grave than those upon whom the greatest tangible earthly blessings have been bestowed. The true measure of our worth then will have nothing to do with what we so zealously covet, pursue, and value on earth if those acquisitions come at the price of our soul. And is that not precisely the currency bartered while trampling others and clawing our way to a skewed concept of "the top"... pieces of our our very soul?

Every slight... every harm... every betrayal... every injury by indifference... all come at a
cost that no soul, even when the time it's most crucial to do so comes, can afford. Considering the miniscule increment of time we're granted on earth versus the immensity of our destined eternity to follow... how could this kind of acquired and flaunted earthly "status" and "wealth" possibly be worth the price that passing earthly years exact?