Expense

Civilization has always been on its way to get somewhere that it will never fully reach, because it isn't a place, it's a state of being. As a part of it, the present state has potential to appear better than others, whether less primitive or oppressive or just more comfortable or free, or destined to be most true. Having grown up in a certain system, one gets attached to a certain way of doing things, with certain expectations within ones own life and for those around and about them. But each occurrence of people working together to make themselves and the world as they see it, no matter their reach, has this in common, the limitless threshold of growth based on the idea of righteousness. 

The opposite of civilization is a form of chaos, either with or without human interaction, in which nature continues to work in mysterious ways. To the civilized mind this would seem like madness or a nightmare, being unrecognizable and without any sense of familiar organization. This realm of being, though, still has the potential for infinite growth of its own sort, one that cannot be harnessed and tamed, but only exists to be smothered and altered. The physics do not change, only the perceived reason and likeness of being do. Potential is not lost or gained; it is replaced.

We have a tendency to start over when things aren't going correctly. Sometimes that means moving on completely, severing all ties with previous ways. This means going back to how things originally were, but not how they were before we got here, rather how things were for us when we first realized them. Before we realized things, they still existed, but beyond our scope of perception. Now we can do things to them and with them, even if that only means thinking about them or leaving them alone entirely. Some of the best things happen when they are left alone so that nature may truly take its course.

Before this happens, we begin to spend our time more and more wisely, having learned our place here and having developed a reason to be and to do things with things and each other or by ourselves. This is good for awhile, but of course we can't go on doing things this way forever. We expect a change, because that's how things are. If they didn't change, they would not be. And so we change them ourselves, and they go on changing and so do we along with them, so things and ourselves become somehow different than it was in the first place. This is reason enough to go back to the first place.

Wealth and identity go hand in hand, as one is the byproduct of the other. As we gain insight we obtain a set of values that remain important as long as that insight persists. An understanding of the tradeoff can be just as valuable as the tradeoff itself, and these are both liquidated into a system of appreciation for all useful things. Still, these things would potentially exist without this value set, but we seem to be able to do more with them within this pretense of development and attainment, rather than sheer appreciation of the things themselves in their natural state. So we often prefer to go on changing for the sake of understanding.

Without understanding, the expectation of doing something within this physical realm is still quite apparent, a cohesive concept kept to ascertain. We have to do something before we can get something or before we can do something else. We were all born into this way of being and as far as we know nobody asked for it or for it to be this certain way, but we go on with it being this way because of our expectation and because of our lack of knowing any other way. At the root of it all, that's just how it is and how it's always been, so that's how it always will be and should be, because it works and nothing more. If it didn't work, we would have the unfamiliar, unrecognizable chaos that would be ugly and we surely would not like it. We would have no reason to go anywhere or do anything, no reason to participate or to get better, to make things, have things or want things, in fact in this case things might very well not even exist to us. That would not mean they don't, just not to us, for us or because of us. They would just exist, like us, and that is all.