Mamad Purbo

Glorified Greed


The obvious and easiest solution for any uneasiness in general, is hope. Hope for better condition, better days sometime in the future. With some kind of hope, the present unacceptable condition can become bearable, and people can have some kind of courage to try to make things better.

Hope for prosperity, hope for happiness, hope for peace.

A natural response to discomfort as it is, unfortunately, also is a misleading solution that will not be effective in the long run. Peace had never happen, nor there will ever be peace. There will never be general contentment, as there has never been such a thing.

Hope drives progress. But humanity has never been fundamentally progressed. Sure we go places (at the price of environment damage), we talk to strangers overseas, we see naked children dying instantly switchable to naked celebrities. But are we happier than the cavemen bonding around bonfire, honestly?

The answer is no.

So where is the progress? So what is the use of all these technological advancement that makes life supposedly easier? Most of we have now are mere excesses. The manifestation of basic human nature: greed.

Life is not fundamentally easier for most human, and will never get any easier. To say the otherwise is to close our eyes on history. There will always be war until there is nothing left. That is, no human left to fight with. The advancement of technology will finally make it possible for humanity to self annihilate itself. Congratulation.

Hope is an illusion. A painkiller for terminal cancer of the earth, humanity. As a matter of fact, hope is not only a painkiller, but also a stimulant for the disease. It does not make things better. It makes things worse faster, albeit temporarily bearable, like a good addictive drug it is.

The common misconception is that if there is no hope then we have no choice but to be desperate. Desperation is the sense of inability to motivate oneself to do actions beneficial to oneself, and to others. Ironically, hope is the major obstacles to actions that could genuinely have long-term benefit to humanity in general. We don't need hope to help each other. We just need to get up and actually help, instead of hoping.

Hope is nothing but a guilt-free glorified greed, gift-wrapped neatly. But it is, essentially, greed. And greed, the basic human nature, is what exactly makes humanity impossible to sustain.