In Quest of Happiness

Wisely the God enwraps in fuliginous night

the future's outcome, and laughs

if mortals are anxious

beyond mortality's bound.

Take care to deal equably

with what is present.

And to live only for today requires us to rise up in rebellion against the tyranny of material possessions. We rave about democracy in public, yet live beneath a perpetual despotism in private. In our obsequious devotion to objects, we are hostage to the vicissitudes of the transitory. Nay, we covet illusions, as though covetousness were not vile enough. "Envy," observes Bertrand Russell, "consists in seeing things, not in themselves, but in their relations". Ozimandian externals affirm in the derelict decrepitude of dead things their Circean mastery. Few are the rebels.