... and let's try to figure out where we went wrong? When you are at your youngest, you are in need of caring adults in your life. If not actually 'of age' full grown, legally-able adults, at minimum people who are older, capable of providing the basic maintenance all infants need until they can become self-sustaining.Then you eventually become able-bodied enough to provide the basics of life without assistance. As you become more and more independent, you grow, mature, become educated, either in the halls of education for the fortunate few, or out in the world where you get the 'hard knocks' variety of street smarts. Both of which have value, though acquired in different forms.
Your daily work might be going to the water source miles away to bring home water for sustenance, that must be boiled before using. Or spending your day searching for food to harvest to feed yourself and family. You might put on a suit and shiny shoes and go to a huge man-made monument, where you are sitting at a desk in a climate controlled environment each day. Either way, you are spending many waking hours doing what you feel is necessary for survival in the society you inhabit.
Remember when you were young? Looking up at the older people in your life? Whether these individuals were parents, older siblings, care givers or total strangers. Admiring them for the skills they had acquired, the advances they had made as they carved out a place for themselves in the world. Considering them from your vantage point to be 'successful' and independent adults, as you looked on from the position of youth, envying the visible indicators of wealth? Your definition of success will vary with the culture, society you inhabit: it could be cattle, or land, or big buildings, or vehicles, or just the number of other humans under your thumb. All reasons for those who are without to be envious of those who appear to be superior.
Now, from the perspective of years: it is obvious that we never achieve that end-of-the-rainbow position of 'success'. No one can actually gain the complete independence we so admired from afar as young people dreaming of financial success and all the accoutrements that we saw as benefits. Even those people who give the appearance of being at the tippy-top of the food chain will still have to answer to someone. There will always be people in authority, no matter who you are. No matter how you feel you might be at the pinnacle of success with thousand dollar shirts/shoes, gated estates with multi-level houses, unique cars, funds hidden in banks in Switzerland.
There will be someone waiting, standing by in the shadows, observing from generation to generation. Younger, faster, more willing to put forth that extra modicum of effort to climb higher. Might be a board of directors, might be citizen armies who are finally fed up with the excess of the people in high places, while others are struggling, with starving children. May be agents planted to weasel their way into an organization searching for flaws, people who have kept silent, but know what will bring the whole pyramid down. Possibly people charged with enforcing rules some think do not apply to the wealthy or feel they are above the law.
You never get to the top, to a place where there is no accountability. That pinnacle is a mirage. No matter how lofty your goals, your desire to be one-hundred-and-one percent independent, there is always going to be someone you will have to answer to. Maybe courts of law, maybe your own under-developed conscience. Were we designed with some inherent accountability? Having recently had several conversations about how humans were not created to last forever, bodies were designed to wear out, have parts fail creates questions about mortality as well as morality.
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