Desire

Desire is to want something very strongly, in my beliefs Buddha taught the freedom from desire “What is evil? Killing is evil, lying is evil, slandering is evil, abuse is evil, gossip is evil: envy is evil, hatred is evil, to cling to false doctrine is evil; all these things are evil. And what is the root of evil? Desire is the root of evil, illusion is the root of evil.” - Buddha. And I am just finally figuring out exactly what that means.

Basically, the truth is, we all desire to be rich and famous. I know how phony that may seem but it is true. We desire the need to gain power and be respected. Nobody really wants to do anything but we feel obligated and are conditioned to become rich and famous so you can afford all these new things. I find it truly disturbing on how we have to be taught to desire these things. Some people take it upon themselves to vow to create things to advance humanity by creating cures and new inventions. But there are others, who do not share that same point of view. Many people take it in the wrong way and often revert to crime to attain this wonderful feeling of having money and power. And I know, it maybe harmless, if a criminal is smart enough to gain a large large profit and get away with it they are quite intelligent. And this kind of crime happens all the time there is nothing you can do to stop it. But where does it exactly end? When do we as a supposed "fully functioning" society say stop?

The picture above this article is showing the ruins of a city from a nuclear Holocaust. This, is what happens when man's desire reaches its full limits. One person's desire is harmless, but what about a group? or a town? or a city? or a country? How about a country that has already achieved power and they have somebody waltz in with impractical ideas? Let me tell you it has happened before, thankfully for not a long time, but things like this get worse and worse every day. Man has only been on this earth for a small fraction of time in the total existence of the universe. Succumbing to desire is something that isn't going to be pleasant, believe me. In my opinion I think freedom from desire is a great thing that should be embraced. We don't want to take the insanity to the epitome of hell. If only in little steps by just thinking for your own and not being concerned with every single problem in the world! Altruism counts as a desire too.

Things taken to the extreme always end up badly, desire is just one of the many poisons that cloud us every day. I'm not being too spiritual, I'm simply implying that we could end up destroying ourselves one day if we let carelessness and desire ruin the fabric of society.