Thoughts on Envy

If someone is more successful than you, don’t envy them. Envy is one of the deadly sins. Burn down his house; because, I checked and arson isn’t even ON the list of sins.

Envy is the state of wanting something that someone else has. The only other alternative is to want something that you, yourself, have; and, that’s just called “forgetting”. Envy is a little different from jealousy; so, you should apply the DOG test to any similar emotion. You know how, when someone has your attention, your dog gets jealous… but never envious. Envious is kind of a big picture sort of emotion. Dogs don’t envy us because they know we have twelve years of picking up their waste ahead.

According to Dante, Envy won’t send you to Hell; but, it will give you a session in Purgatory, Second Terrace. If you envy someone because they are pious and pure at heart, I’m sure any decent lawyer can get that sentenced reduced. It’s not all terraces and purging. The envious’ eyes are sewn shut with wires, rendering them both blind and unable to board a plane in America. The envious souls sit in rows, propped up against the bank and each other, with their eyes sewn shut. This serves as a “mirror” to their sins: they could not look kindly upon others in life, so they cannot see in death. Leading to the question, “Who really sucks at ironic punishment?”. The Italians…

Who I Envy? I envy people who can see a problem and dissect it into a lot of smaller problems and then break those problems up into minutia… and STILL have a great excuse saved up for when they fail. I envy thirty year-old virgins because they have more focus and more energy and don’t have a CLUE what they are missing out on. I envy the people who created and add to the Fast and the Furious franchise because, unlike some of us, they’ll know exactly how they ended up in Hell for an eternity. I envy anyone who’s never had to pull a horse out from under a single-wide trailer (you will NOT be thanked). I envy people who are comfortable in their own skin. Personally, I have to get under my own skin with a hanger and just SCRATCH every once in a while. I envy those who, with only ingredients found in every kitchen, can make a passable squid au gratin.

Shakespeare stated, in Othello, that envy is a green-eyed monster. From what a friend told me, Charlize Theron was a green-eyed monster while filming Atomic Blonde; but, who are we to judge an actress having an angry fit in her trailer because the oranges in her fruit basket had seeds. But, as certain as the fact that I often confuse Vin Diesel for Charlize Theron, envy will eat away at you… a cold void that, at first, depresses you, then fortifies you and finally gives you the insight only intense yearning provides. Suddenly, you understand the entire Wheel of Life and how we are all one. Suddenly, you are enlightened…

… God! I wish I was you…