Insecure people have a way of glorifying basic human needs as a means of self-importance. A meal ceases to be nourishment and becomes a statement. A bed ceases to be rest and becomes a boast. A garment ceases to cover the body and begins to pass judgment on the person standing next to us. When a basic need is elevated in this way, desire turns into ignorance, because self-importance is ignorance in its Sunday best.
Human beings are complex creatures. We take what is ordinary and make it a status symbol, and once a symbol exists, comparison follows, and comparison breeds competition. The contest has no finish line because the craving that drives it has no bottom. Whoever dines at the finer table, sleeps in the larger house or wears the costlier label is never the last word on the subject; someone, somewhere, always has more. The result is endless conflict, in our homes, workplaces and public life, and in the quiet arithmetic we run against our neighbours.
Why do we do it? Part of the answer is our hunger for permanence. We fear the unknown. We want the assurance of self-continuity, and we nurse the illusion that we will get something out of life, some final possession or position that settles the matter. Yet at the back of our minds we know the truth about change and impermanence. We simply do not want to accept it.
Refusing to accept it, we cling. We reach for an external, eternal and stable entity that our own thoughts have created, and we worship it in the hope of escaping the sorrow of living. Sometimes it is wealth; sometimes a title, a reputation, or an image of ourselves that we polish daily. Whatever the object, the pattern is the same. It is driven by insecurity, and it leads exactly where we feared it would: to sorrow, because the thing we cling to is as impermanent as we are.
“Self-importance is ignorance.”
Because we are insecure, we cultivate happiness in vanity. Most of us are vain, and we are very proud. The tragedy is that our vanity blocks the one thing that could free us: the ability to observe vanity in ourselves. Without that observation there can be no humility, and it is only a mind with a great sense of humility that can learn. The proud person cannot be taught, having already decided that he is the teacher.
This is why the contest is so costly. It consumes attention that could go to understanding, and energy that could go to living.
Consider what our basic needs actually ask of us. Whatever food you eat, and wherever you eat it, is eventually converted into calories to fuel the functions of the body. Where you sleep matters little; the quality of the sleep is what counts. The clothes you wear matter little so long as they are clean. None of this is an argument for squalor, or against enjoying good things. It is an argument for proportion. To enjoy something is one thing. To use it to rank ourselves above others is quite another.
You are not here to be better than anybody, or to extract some prize from life, because life is not something you can own. Living is never a competition.
“You are here to live. Do not try to own life.”
Let us stop glorifying basic human needs as an extension of self-importance. Eat, sleep and dress with gratitude and without ceremony. Look honestly at the vanity in yourself, and let humility do its quiet work. Live life; do not cling to it through the endless seeking of vanity. It is wasted energy.
