Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: SELF-CONTROL (12/09/21)
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TITLE: The Festival Must End | Previous Challenge Entry
By Samuel Kane
12/14/21 -
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The end… the end to what? Believe it or not, it is a valid question. Death is the end to what? To life of course. But what is life?
“Eat and drink for tomorrow we die."
Is that all that life truly is? A short, brutish existence when we try to do our bit to progress society… a society which itself is short, brutish, and will soon fade out of existence?
There are many who claim that we are free beings driven by self-interest, self-determination, self-gratification. They state that your purpose is nothing more than to do what brings you pleasure.
Go out and drink, dance, and meet people you’ll never remember in the morning. Live fast; die young.
Where is the need for self-control in a life of pure hedonism?
Or perhaps, for more conservative individuals, enjoy a safer flavour of pleasure. Invest in a savings account. Buy a house. Settle down and live into your old age where you can take strolls and collect seashells to your heart’s content. Live your own version of that beautiful, idyllic dream. Find passion in your hobbies and pleasures while your days still last.
Or what of those of you who find security in the wealth and power you accumulate, no matter how many you push down to get there? It is the survival of the fittest and you are the strongest. Throw extravagant parties on your private yacht and reap your reward.
Where is the need for self-control in the laws of the jungle?
Yet this festival of indulgence must come to a close, and to what end?
All must die and then their life’s work is ultimately undone. Who will remember you once your legacy has unravelled? Where is the ultimate distinction between the professor and the student, the reveller and the retiree, the mighty ruler and the filthy vagabond?
To quote the great James Shirley:
“The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
Death lays his icy hands on Kings;
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.”
The logical fallacy of the hedonists is that they claim to find purpose in pleasure, but surely that would require there to be a difference in a life with pleasure and a life without. Both end in emptiness. Surely our purpose must actually mean something.
We are all united in this shared destiny, where our every possession is stripped away. Kings and peasants will taste equally good to the worms who feast upon their flesh. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant came to the same conclusion, yet he rejected nihilism. All this is meaningless… only if this was all that there is. All of it means nothing without a moral guarantor.
We are all united in a shared destiny to stand before a judge in the courtroom of eternity.
Perhaps on that day, judged by a higher standard than our own, self-control will seem of more value.
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