11 Jul 2009

"We are finding place in world" or "The world is finding place in us"

The senior devil, Screwtape, wrote to his nephew Wormwood with advice on how to tempt and win a human being in Wormwood's charge. 'The Enemy' is God.

Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is 'finding his place in it', while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of being really at home in earth which is just what we want. You will notice that the young are generally less unwilling to die than the middle aged and the old.

(The Screwtape Letters / C.S. Lewis)

Notes: 
  1. "His widening circle of acquaintances" equates nicely to the larger social network that one has.
  2. "His sense of importance" equates nicely to obtaining: higher pay (therefore, one's ability to "buy more toys" -- cars, digital cameras, golf clubs, design clothes, designer pen -- Mont Blanc, expensive shoes), promotion (therefore, one's ability to "act big"), higher education qualifications (therefore, one's decreasingly likelihood in being mistaken or wrong)
  3. “The growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work” -- This is probably the most insidious! It tugs at both ends -- pressure at one and absorbing and agreeable work at the other