That Wonderful Thing Called Fantasy

Card Art ©US Games

One faculty that's unique to us humans is the ability and preposition to fantasize - about everything and anything, even the most basic and profane needs like eating and shitting (excuse my French).
All living things have to eat to stay alive, from an ant, a garden slug to a horse, dog, a monkey and a man. But we are the only creature to have created a science out of what we should and should not eat; it's called DIET. Such and such a diet will do such and such a thing to your body... eating or drinking such and such a thing will prevent cancer and make you live longer.... or cutting this or that out from your diet will make you slim or detox your body. No matter what fantasies we have invented about our diet, it's not going to change the fact that the body is still just a pile of bones, flesh, bone marrows, tissues and organs; and the food stuff once absorbed and made use by the body is still going to come out the other end every day (if you're lucky) as shit, and shit is always going to stink even if you eat nothing but lotus flower (a symbol of purity in many cultures and religions) daily. The point I'm trying to make is you are not going to become purer or more spiritual because of your diet. Monkeys in the jungle don't choose or pick a diet, are they less healthy than us? Have you seen an over-weight monkey who's become anxious about what they should or should not eat? It's the human society that has created this problem called weight by putting loads of junk food in the super-market shelves or in fast-food outlets; now it's trying to counter-act its own action by luring victims to buy products/services to alleviate the aftermath. It's like selling toxin for people to take with one hand and offering them anti-toxin with the other. How absurd that is!

Let's move onto something perhaps less mundane. Breathing. Again all living things have to breath one way or another. We are the only creature on the planet who've invented all manners of 'breathing techniques' in the hope of bringing about purification, consciousness expansion or spiritual ecstasy. If you strive for deeeeeep breathing, you'll feel this and that and hopefully will have a spiritual orgasm; if you hold your breath for such and such a period of time in such and such a manner, you'll see Krishna, Buddha, Christ or God himself in the end. Or simply if you can make your breathing go this way or that way you'll develop such and such a power or have a transcendental experience. Have we ever asked, why is this perpetual need to become something which we are not, why the need to see God, to be saved from what; why the hope to transcend and transcend what? But create fantasy in whatever manner you will, we will still remain humans, we can never become God (if there is one), not while still on this planet anyway. An earth-worm will stay an earth-worm no matter how much meditation it's done. We do not suddenly become more spiritual, more sacred or more wise because we've attempted a few breathing exercises or those self-torturing techniques called meditation.

Let's look at another basic fact of life - aging. We are the only animals on earth who've developed such fear for this most natural process and then invented so many fantasies about it: various exercise regimes, anti-aging drugs, cosmetic products and surgeries... all manners of tips for making one 'look 10 years younger' as seen on TV, etc. Why do we need to 'look' younger than our actual age, anyway? Is it a basic need for surviving? For good health? Neither. So you see whatever aspect of life that's been touched by the human mind is going to be distorted out of proportion by this unique and fantastic human faculty called fantasy. I really can't see how any of these fantasy going to help in any way in this process called evolution, either physical or spiritual. If anything, these fantasies are making us more anxious, more fearful about basic facts of life and living itself. We have become an utterly hopeless paranoia who's frightened of his own shadow!

Save the humans!