Sometimes I seem to myself like some kind of fundamentalist bent on preaching simplification to the multitudes. It almost sounds to my own ears that I am telling the world of have-nots that not having is actually a good thing. It keeps the soul pure, the mind keen, the body active, the heart racing. That would be well and good, except. Always, except. Except it sounds too much like I am saying "accept your fate," which I am not. I may rail against the machine that demands from us in the so-called industrialized world to buy and buy and buy stuff we do not need, while so many in the world need simpler things they cannot have.
I am not Mother Teresa, or Father Teresa for that matter. I am selfish, self-absorbed, and self-contained. I like my creature comforts. I spend most of my time inside my own head, and let the rest of the world glide past me, doing its own thing.
I'm not much in "isms." Most isms are large scale controls designed to keep the multitudes in line and crush anyone in opposition. Go with the tide or drown. I love individuality, which thrives when the only constraints placed on it are moral constraints. Consumerism is my latest bane, but there are plenty to choose from, both historically and currently. Give me an ism and I will gladly tell you why I don't like it.
If you dare.
Yet I consume, so there you go.
I am not ready to sell all I have and move to a place where poverty and sickness need attention. I am not that brave. I admire those who are. I am not Saint Francis of Assisi, a man who believed in an ism with all his heart and lived his beliefs with every breath. Like Mother Teresa, he was in the trenches, helping. The Catholic nuns in trouble today with Mother Church because they won't allow themselves to become politicized when there are people to help, believe in an ism and live their beliefs. I admire people like that even when I find the ism to be faulty. They don't share my skepticism.
So there you go.
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