Greed

greed

derives from hunger

from the fear that our needs will not be satisfied

in the future

so the unit reacts by acquiring, and storing

enough to survive the oncoming

feared, dangerous, unknown future.

Enough to feed all those pieces of us

that need to be nourished to survive.

Our body's health and function, for one,

requires shelter and sustenance,

so one must have the ability to acquire these goods

and keep the body alive and well.

Our social standing

and dynamics, our traditions,

we value them as parts of ourselves

that we are not willing to part with

so we ensure that we have and keep

enough value at our disposal

to keep these traditions alive.

Such upkeep of social standing

requires uninterrupted

appearance of well-being,

and the fear of blemishes upon this appearance

keeps many strongly invested in masking

the messy innards and fluxing states of being

with an image of self-sufficiency

and a balanced, genial emotional attitude,

or whichever mask we choose for ourselves.

A single blemish or crack in our masks

is seldom forgotten by society,

many believe,

and much effort is placed into

the perfect upkeep and polish of the mask.

The fear that we might not be able

to nourish and sustain all these parts

that we value and believe to be our selves

powers greed.

These fears are not unlike

the fear of having an ear or arm cut off,

for we feel them as ourselves

whether tangible flesh or not.

Such fear is born out of lack

in the past to care enough for ourselves

and the desperation to acquire in order to survive.

What we often lack

is understanding of this our own fear

and a method to turn it off,

to let it go.

Such fear may never be satisfied,

if it believes that our resources will be exhausted, slip away and vanish

unless we sustain all the layers around us we have built

and believe to be our self.

It seems to be constructed,

this greed,

from a layered chain, one layer upon the other.

The one need begets the other,

a chain of dependency

that requires one resource to acquire the next.

Money to acquire food and shelter.

Social value to acquire money.

Social status to acquire social value.

Trinkets and habits to keep social standing,

smiles and tradition to upkeep an image of value

and a stable social community.

A constant unconscious struggle to keep all parts of our self

whole and undamaged

because we fear that what comes

may rip parts of us away.

Each layer begets the next atop it to protect it

necessarily larger and heavier

to shield it from the unforgiving world

to keep us whole and safe

sometimes forgetting those layers were made by us

but are not truly us.