What if the past was paved with marble?
Reflections on a trip through Turkey
What if the past was paved with marble?
What would that mean about the present day?
Tip-toeing Turkey across mine-fields of marble forced me to reflect on one of the most evil lies of our time: The lie of scarcity.
How would you live if you knew that you were divinely provided for?
If you knew, as a matter of fact, that everything you could ever need, desire, or imagine was yours upon request. If you knew that you could eat like a king, and have a mansion all to yourself? Space to sprawl and play with no landlord, tax, or constraint. How then would you live your life? Would you still show up to work on Monday? Would you spend so much time gathering greenbacks?
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?[a] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. - Matthew 6
Almost everyone (including yourself) is spending most of their life force (~5/7 days of the week) in exchange for debt notes to pay for a box to live in.
These debt notes keep your lights on, plastic cubed meat in the fridge, ‘fossil fuel’ in the gas tank, and if you’re lucky give you a day or two of rest on Saturns-day and Sun-day. Does it seem like a fair trade to you?
What is your life worth to the ‘free’ market?
The only reason to buy what they are selling is if you think it’s the only thins on the menu. Children raised in abuse seek it from their future partners. The light is blinding if you have only known the dark.
But who told you that our world is scarce?
Have you ever asked the sun to rise and greet you in the morning? Begged the birds to sing you their song? Even the trees bow down to place fruit in arms reach.
I see nothing but abundance.
Turkey re-enforced to me that scarcity is a modern construct. It’s a careful cage over our abundant past, told in the present, to guide the future.
I saw more marble buried in the ground than cover the countertops of the West. Multiple massive theaters the size of the ‘the’ Colosseum only 30 minutes from one another. Hundreds of empty bathes that used to flow with holy water and frankincense. As many temples to Artemis, Hercules, and Zeus as Baptist churches in my hometown in Georgia. So many oranges growing that they fell to the ground by the hundreds. Enough to feed the village, and fill dumpsters with the spoiled.
So why lie about the past?
Because a regressive past produces low expectations for today.
If we came from savages scrapping to survive in the sand, then Onlyfans and Ubereats feel like progress. If life expectancy was low, and resources were scarce, then Amazon drones and glass cube towers feel like abundance.
But if our past was paved with marble, perhaps we lost something along the way.
Old souls wander through ancient sites;
Hearts overflowing with youthful delight
A whimsical land of joy and dreams;
A thousand faces tell old stories with timeless themes
The young are here, we have not forgotten;
That the stones are buried where the giants have trodden And if you get lost in a land so bizarre,
simply seek out the temples resting under familiar stars
They’ll reveal the way, and illuminate your path, as you ramble through days of future past.
Thanks for reading, share/subscribe if you feel called, otherwise remember:
Mythologize Yourself; You The Renaissance.