Gehenna Part 3: A Fisher of Men

Part 3: A Fisher of men

      In my isolation I dig, unearthing a grief buried deep inside, sorrow opens her mouth and swallows me whole. The jaws of darkness crunch down devouring all; behold the exploiter’s hell (for hell be my indefinite surroundings), my life, this horrid sadness that plagues the very essence of my being. Bombarded by chaos, nightfall embraces my shadowed soul. Fueled by the pangs of hunger, in wreckage I open my eyes. In time of crises I, the mercilessly exploited, seek unity with humanity.

     I will not tolerate the dull acceptance acquired by habit, as if it were mankind’s common lot to live in this wretched condition. I strongly believe that no matter what emotions are impinged upon me, that the most important dimensions of life are those that delve into are choices and mentalities. Unveiling the guise of the battlefield of the capitalistic world’s apathy is imperative to me reinforcing my bond with other sufferers. May I now delve into a deeper gaze into understanding the human world? There are dark lines obtrusively present in the modern world, experiences that lie beneath our everyday being, that are rarely examined.
 
    Augenblick. A harrowing moment of thrownness has jettisoned into my conscious thoughts, who am I and who am I to become… and, does it matter? Is suffering a quintessential exponent of my life? Does the quest for happiness spur my cause for dread and misfortune? I am a naked women delving into dangerous territory called “perhaps”. On my tiny vessel of maybe’s I present you with coruscating postulates that could be deemed as non grandus anus rodentum, by less reflective individuals.

         Smoking in America incorporates 8.6 million people. At 5 minutes a cigarette approximately 43 million minutes are wasted if each smoking American only smokes one a day (that‘s 716,667 hours; 29,861 days; roughly 82 years of productivity set-back nationwide by cigarette smoking). Switching those minutes to numbers the cost per pack of cigarettes is $5.50 which makes 47.3 million dollars spent on cigarettes if each smoker only smoked one pack in the course of their lifetime. The estimated health care costs reached $96 billion in 2010 of smoking caused-- health-related illnesses.(www.lung.org)     

    Consuming alcohol was estimated at only $65 billion annually in health related costs in America(www.scu.edu/ethics).
 However, the estimated costs of alcohol abuse in 1982 were economically predicted to be $184.6 billion a year (www.Samhsa.gov/) .

   Substance abuse was estimated at a healthcare cost of $114 billion and $414 billion on total economic costs last year. (http://medical-dictionary.com).  



      STD’s infect 12 million American’s per year according to recent statistics (www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals); costing a mere $17 billion in health care. For 25 different STD’s there are more that 55 million Americans currently suffering from sexual choices. STD’s kill more than 4,500 woman a year.   

    “Get America Fit” campaign claims that 60 million Americans are obese. More than 1/3 or 35% of the United States Population is morbidly over weight. 9 million children, 1 out of 7 preschoolers are entering the gamut of our #2 cause of preventable death…(heart attack which can be associated is the #1 actual cause of death in America on a different set of statistics). In 2000, $80.2 billion dollars were spent of health-related illnesses to overeating Americans (www.ncbI.nlm.nih.gov). WTF??  

     Gluttony for Aquinas was a, “sin against God, just as all mortal sins in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things.” In Dante’s Purgatory, penitents were bound and laid face down on the ground in dirt for having concentrated too much on earthly thoughts. Avarice is a blanket term for greedy behavior and coveting also includes the common thread of Greed: an inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs, especially with respect to material wealth.
 
     ~6.6 million hate crimes are committed per year that cost an estimated $50 billion a year of each state’s taxpayer money and $5 billion a year federal taxes just to house criminals in jail… mind you… and 40 million adults are severely affected by stress so much so that $200 billion a year is consumed by related problems…(www.fbi.gov)
 
    So… if your average true-blue American is wondering were all the $ and time goes… it’s to paying for the spoils of the “good life”… at least for those “independent individuals” who have time to exonerate themselves from the trials and tribulations of work to enjoy addictions and life’s excesses of pleasure!!! Talk about carnal errors Evagrius Ponticus, John Cassius and Pope Gregory I... Dante’s precursors to his Divine Catharsis. 

      Filippo Argenti of the Adimari family, while guarded by Phlegyas the avenger, resided in the river Styx for his gluttonous ways. In the 7^th Terrace of Purgatory--the Lustful-- the poet Arnaut Danials weeps recognizing his own mistakes, and sings these words: “Ara vos prc, per aquella valor/ que vos quida al som de l`escalina,/ sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor!/ Poi `ascose nel foco che li affina.”(Dante’s Divine Comedy, 760) ... Translated roughly… “I pray you, by the power that conducts you here, be mindful of my pain…then he hid himself in that fire which refines”.

        …In the scope of The Divine Comedy, this occurs just before Dante the character walks through the threshold of earthly paradise. The sun is at the point of day’s departure, Dante is afraid to pass through the flames and the entire experience presents the example of active and contemplative life.
  
     So what’s the point? How do we respond to the vicissitudes of life? Do we make self absorbed and ultimately destructive choices to entertain ourselves and please ourselves? Or, quite to the contrary, do we attempt to resolve our pain and suffering by living a life of moderation and by assisting Others? Across the threshold of pain, I do believe lies salvation. Absolve yourselves of addictions friends, find peace in the mundane existence. And as a famous Jamaican once said, “Don’t worry Be Happy.” Everything is going to be all right; just have faith.