Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Holy Trinity. No mortal can fully understand this sublime truth. But we submit humbly and say: Lord, I believe, help my weak faith.
Where there is envy, you find shame underneath. The realm of comparison and competition is where envy holds court, as it were. Comparative elements between contrasting rivals evince envy in one or the other of these two, envy being a feeling in which a person is made to acknowledge (to himself of course) inferiority viz-a-viz another. He measures himself against somethings else, and finds himself wanting. Remember the Nebuchadnessarian writing on the wall? TEKEL, TEKEL, NEME UPHARSIN. That’s like the late director Lino Brocka’s film TINIMBANG KA NGUNIT KULANG. That definitely shows one up to be less than what one should be. One should measure up or one would be bound “to look askance” at a better fellow. The fatal envy felt by Cain of Abel’s being the favoured one of God naturally gave the nod to the nomadic shepherd (whose faith in God goes with him wherever he may happen to be; whereas Cain’s – an agriculturist – was bound to where his farm lot was) could only end as it did: the first murder in Holy Scriptures. Now envy and antipathy, passions irreconcilable in reason, nevertheless in fact, may spring conjoined like Siamese twins Chang-and-Eng in one birth. They are irreconcilable in reason because envy is presumably based on the recognition of the good that the other possesses. The struggling brothers theme, the image of Jacob and Esau struggling in utero, “The children struggled together within her” (Rebekkah) Gen. 25:22 us explicit enough. Then there’s envy of the Prodigal Son’s elder brother who, for all his being a stay-at-home and obedient to his father in the running of the family concern, yet was refused by the old man even the occasional goat for PULUTAN with his once-in-a-blue moon drink-up with his BARKADA. Envy has a field-day in such scenario. If you ever read THE FAERIE QUEEN of Spencer, you might recall a stanza in it where envy is strikingly described:
AND NEXT TO HIM MALICIOUS ENVY RODE UPON RAVENOUS WOLFE, AND STILL DID CHAW BETWEEN HIS CANKRED TEETH A VENEMOUS TODE, THEN ALL THE POISON RAN ABOUT HIS JAW; BUT INWARDLY HE CHAWED HIS OWN MAW AT NEIGHBOUR’S WEALTH, THAT MADE HIM EVER SAD; FOR DEATH IT WAS WHEN ANY GOOD HE SAW, AND WEPT, THAT CAUSE OF WEEPING NONE.
HE HAD, BUT WHEN HE HEARD OF HARME, HE WEXED WONDROUS GLAD!
In the last canto of Spencer’s poem, Envy is “Y-PAINTED FULL OF EYES.” The origin of the word envy is the Latin INVIDIA, a derivation of INVIDERE(to look askance) envy being associated in folklore with a certain look, specifically that malignant looking known as the “evil eye” (in Italian, even amongst the Mafia, MAL OCCHIO) that restless looking that invidiously compares to the self-everything that it happens to light on. Recalling Spencer’s line in Max Scheler’s illustration of what constitutes a sufficient motive for revenge in someone riddled with envy and resentment.
“A typical cause would be continual deflation of one’s ego by the constant sight of a neighbor’s rich and beautiful farm.” (Max Scheler RESSENTIMENT, 1961, p.65)
To continue with this most intriguing topic. The envious person feels inferior, rather that empty. He cannot stand to see other full of life and goodness, because he is preoccupied with his own limitations ad defects. (He knows them best.) So he has to debunk, debase, defile what others have. Envy is aroused by the awareness of vitality and prosperity, indeed by life itself. The envious aims to eliminate the torment to himself or herself by forceful, attacking, annihilatory behaviour. In such personalities we are dealing most assuredly with what Max Scheler was referring to when he observed that the most powerless envy is also the most terrible. Therefore, existential envy which is directed against the other person’s very nature, is the strongest source of ressentiment. It is as if it whispers continually: “I can forgive everything but not that you are – indeed, that I am not you.” This form of Envy strips the opponent of his very existence, for the existence as such is felt to be an unbearable pressure, a reproach, and an unbearable humiliation. (Ressentiment, 1961, p.53)
In the hierarchy of mortal sins, I should thing ENVY ranks next to PRIDE, for what is envy but frustrated pride?
MAMATAY KA SA INGGIT! JOKE… 🙂
