I am tempted, obviously by the ‘devil’, to believe it’s the ‘devil’ that make people rich and successful in the material sense. There is no built-in error correction in success. It tends to encourage one to continue on a path without ever considering that the path may be wrong. The base and infantile assumption is that if it feels good and appears progressive, it must be good.
The spiritually soporific Bentleys, Hennessey brandy, Rolex wristwatches and Gulfstream private jets also encourage the master-of-the-universe feeling or the Trump-effect. In this mental state, one is unlikely to honestly sing the hymn: “My richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride”, prior to donating millions of dollars to charity or starting the next mega-bucks project.
Failure is the only thing that can make one pause and perhaps change direction. Unfortunately, on the one hand, this pause is usually succeeded by an intensification of effort aimed at surmounting the very obstacle that may have served as a barrier or protection from futility or self annihilation. On the other, a change of direction tends toward ‘success’ not transcendence. It is usually toward the more; the plentiful and the path of ease, which is specifically designed to make one more comfortable, externally oriented and less reflective.
Perhaps this is the reason the religious would say that the Lord chastises those he loves. Seriously, if I were the devil, my sole and overarching mission would be to assist and encourage everyone towards his or her dreams. Considering that I would be the one supplying the beautiful and irresistible dreams. A person could be so wrong that he or she becomes incapable of imagining how wrong he or she has become. With all due respect, this is the only kind of error a devil worth his salt should design and engineer.
Author,
PYTHON AND THE RAINMAKER – An Investigation of the highly improbable…coming soon.
Add comment