The Folly of Worship

Wikipedia defines “Worship” as an act of religious devotion. It is derived from the word “worthscipe” which means worthiness or worth-ship which is to give worth to something.

But I wanted to talk about it in a non-religious concept. 

We are all guilty of  putting too much worth on things. We exert so much effort acquiring things only to waste more energy getting worried that we’d lose any of it.

Which makes for a hard and tiring life.

Writer David Foster Wallace, in his 2005 commencement speech “This is Water” said:

… pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough.

Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear.

Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

Such is the irony of life.

And in such ironic twist, DFW hanged himself in 2008 due to depression that plagued him for some 20 years.

While we are on the topic of depression, did you know that creative individuals are more prone to depression?

The author Eric Maisel of The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person’s Path Through Depression, believes depression in artists is inevitable.  He says:

 “100% of creative people people are going to experience existential depression, which is a result of their desire to find meaning in life through their work.”

Studies published in various scientific journals  also state that artists and writers are up to 20 times more likely to suffer from bipolar disorder (also called manic depressive illness) and 10 times more likely to suffer from depression.

So knowing what really matters in life is such an important lesson we all need to learn.

Because life is short.  And we have so many things to get depressed about if we allow it.

Don’t let any of these trivial things eat you alive.