‘Humanity is weary, worn out from its struggle to achieve the next thing, and the next’.
There is an ant heap, but of people. This ant pile of people is all in a mad climb towards a higher place on the pile, because the further down the bottom you are the less you have. The ants climbing ahead of us keep telling us that it’s great to be climbing the pile and if we get to the top it’s the best achievement possible. So we keep climbing, and others are helping us up a bit as we go, and as we keep climbing we notice others that have fallen back, and look disillusioned and weary, but they get up and start climbing again.
The further up the pile we go we notice also that the pace and scramble seems to be getting faster and the others don’t seem to be smiling much anymore, but we keep going, climbing as fast as we can towards the success of the higher echelons of the pile.
We see some actually crash to the ground and need help psychologically, and physically from their fall from the pile, they looked empty and washed out. But we try not to notice.
As we push on towards the higher stages of the pile we notice its getting narrower towards the top, and there was more of an urgency, almost a frenzy, and some were grouping together holding others back as they pushed forwards, and there were even less signs of smiling, but worse still we started noticing that the others are being more aggressive as they get closer to the top, and seem less and less concerned about the others below them like they don’t care who falls or gets hurt by falling and slipping.
As we get closer to the top we start seeing others actually trampling on those near them and stepping on anyone else as long as they keep moving upwards, almost using other bodies as stepping stones, I saw one stamp on another’s hands sending them falling to the ground, there seems to be a callous, coldness about the ones up here and they seem to actually enjoy it when someone close by falls off, as they seem to get more of a foothold themselves. They seemed almost aloof as though they didn’t want to even touch those below them, almost like they were unclean, just stepping stones for their own progress upwards.
At last we saw the top, there were a group of others but they looked different, there was a deadness in their eyes, a look of ruthlessness as though they didn’t care about anyone except themselves, and worse still they didn’t care how many fell to their death off the pile under them as long as they were okay. In fact we were shocked to realize that they were using everyone else on and in the pile to keep their position at the top, they were robbing everyone else of their energy, actually using others as just things for them to use and nothing more. The climbers below them couldn’t get past them or near them.
Just as we could see the top of the heap where the ruthless ones were, I asked someone coming back down exhausted ‘what’s at the top’? Their answer shocked me they said ‘nothing, there’s nothing there it’s just the top of a pile with them on it’.
A strange feeling engulfed me, I felt sorry for all the climbers and fallers, but I also felt sorry for the ones at the top because there was nothing there. They had arrived at the top only to find that the happiness and peace they thought they would find by arriving there still evaded them, and though they smiled and reveled in their power of controlling the top, their eyes looked empty and sad. All those that suffered and lost their lives for nothing. – Jason Liosatos. www.jasonliosatos.com
5 years ago