We have all been brainwashed.
One of the ways in which we have been programmed is through the thought that we matter.
We want to be, we need to be, recognized. We are told by politicians, by writers of self-help books, by leaders and speakers that we are unique individuals and we are important.
We are not.
We are just a fever bag of desires and anxieties and insecurities and there are millions, billions, of other such fever bags and more are on the way.
Shelley described this beautifully in his sonnet – Ozymandias.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Ozymandias was the Greek name for Ramses II. This poem came home to me when I visited Egypt and went to Luxor and the Valley of Kings and other historic sites. Ramses II was a master of self-promotion. There are statues of him everywhere. Big ones and little ones. There are pictures of him, edicts by him, cartouches with his names – he had many – on them. Few rulers in history worked harder to immortalize themselves.
That was more than three thousand years ago. Where is he now and when was the last time you thought of him?
Thomas Gray said the same thing poetically:
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow’r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Think of the legions who held vast sway over huge tracts of land. Julius Caesar, Alexander, Genghis Khan, The Mughals.
All gone.
So will you be and sooner than you think.
We are all running out of time.
We have spent our entire life and expended enormous amounts of energy trying to become somebody.
Don’t do this anymore. Starting right now, try to become nobody.
Peace!
