Greed is on my mind today, and it has nothing at all to do with the stock market. It has to do with a bone.
Perhaps this bone is the bleached pelvis of a young deer. I don’t know. What I do know is that the bone, exposed by the morning sun in the dry August grass of a prairie dog town in the North Dakota badlands, became an object of desire. As I picked it up and examined its inner and outer structure, the calcified inner layer of trabeculae unveiled a previously unseen world; triggering vivid thoughts of the life sustaining blood that once ran through the chambers.
This piece of bone provided life and structure to a perfectly complete creature that ran beside its mother for only a brief time before something took it down. I felt connected, and as a result, I wanted more bone. Prairie dogs screeched alarm calls as I fruitlessly searched for more remnants of the pelvis. Was there not a rib, or a skull to be found nearby? A skull would be fine. But the broken piece of pelvis was my only prize.
I felt disappointment and greed. I was hungry for more bone. Why was this happening? I do not have bones scattered about my office, or dangling from a string attached to the rear view mirror in my car. My most precious artifact is a large piece of mica found at an abandoned mine in South Africa. I do not collect bones, but the broken piece of pelvis now rests next to the mica and a ceramic snail that once belonged to Dian Fossey.
I think about the bone and wonder why I still want more bones. Isn’t one bone enough?
The bits of chemicals and salts that form the bone are not alive, but they were molded at creation and endure-- a monument to a once-living creature.
Bone also provides structure to this consciousness I call “me.”
I do not need more bone. But need and desire are opposing forces. I know this. But I still want.
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