I believe that the dream of uncounted riches and the luxury of having others serve your every whim intrudes upon the dreamscape of nearly every sleeping mind. After a long day of answering customers' calls, taking orders from a busy boss, or running errands for family members, who wouldn't dream? Yet those who have servants, and especially those who attempt to rigidly control their employees know a terrible secret. The caged servant and the controlled employee are not alone in the prison. Those who would control must never let go of the reigns of their power and soon learn that that kind of power is both expensive and limited. And then, there is the fear. We fear that others may take our things. We fear that we will lose control. We often fear loss of something (like control over others, resources, or information) that we never really had in the first place.
The free soul knows that personal power is simply the ability to get what we want from our environment. Manipulating others, as puppet master, ties master to puppet as securely as puppet to master. We also tie ourselves to things which, if those objects sink into the morass of a suffering economy or other disaster, will drag us down with them. Perhaps that is why, when a credit card or other debt is paid off, I feel light enough to fly away...and I never have to worry if the butler did it...
Mick
Servant's Web
Once, long ago, I dreamt of being rich:
Servants galore, to scratch every itch,
Bring all I could want, whether day or night,
At my merest whim, to my great delight!
I reveled in excess, hedonistic,
Becoming a material mystic.
I thought only of pleasures and of things,
Not once did I notice the web of strings -
Growing about me exponentially,
Stealthily, silently, invisibly;
Till trapped by servants, I began to choke,
And vainly gasping for air, I awoke...
May I never live in captivity -
For with no one to serve me, I am free.
Mick McKellar
October 2008
October 2008
