tapping into the same vanity

The extortionistic mentality of modern human's sources of influence tap into the same vein. The consumerist and the religious play to the same tune. In tandem they play to our eternal desire to make us feel better about ourselves. The former lies in the superficial realm and the latter in a supposed spiritual realm. Both selling the same product. For the need to quench our fears of living in a social structure and the inherent desire for acceptance coupled with the fear of death.

We can only see the trees, not the forest. What good does the anxiety that was bestowed upon us with the acquisition of a conscious mind than anything else than exploitation for the gain of an Other? Realizations of the fragility of the effects of our collective fears has resulted in environments which we struggle to deal with. The gift of existence is permanently overshadowed by the compromises that come with that existence. Fear is inescapable to the sentient being. Knowing this, we as a society have based the framework of success on abilities directed at profiting from this fear. If it were a universal fear of something else, we would have been riding that bandwagon for the same amount of time. But there will never be anything as profitable as the sense of our own mortality and the image that we project while approaching such a fate in a social structure.