Mankind’s Ultimate Illness

I don’t know why I remember this line from William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, but it is as follows.

“Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness.”

This was Golding asserting that Man is essentially evil at the core and will descend and devolve at the first given opportunity, like those poor sods on that island. For me, the Ultimate Illness beneath even wickedness and evil is fear. I myself know that a lot of my life has been fearful and evasive. We run from our fears. We become someone we’re not. Life becomes intolerable for some unknown and unholy reason. A deep dissatisfaction washes over us. If I just keep running and avoiding, I’ll be safe. They won’t find me. It won’t find me. Death won’t find me. Yes, I can run forever! I’ll do vile and blasphemous things if I have to. I’ll be wicked and I’ll lie, cheat, and steal my way out of here - away from It. Even when my body begins to fail me, I’ll retreat into my mind, it’s strong and enduring! And when it fails too, I’ll blast myself out of my mind with every drug suitable for human and animal consumption. And then finally, horribly battered and bloodied and bruised, I’ll crawl into the Arms of Death, and take one last glimpse. I’ll look at a shell of a life. I’ll see a life of absence. I’ll see a life of delinquency and foulness. I’ll see a life of inauthenticity. I’ll see a life where, if I really thought about it, I didn’t live for a single second. All I did was run and hide. Run and hide… run and hide... I ran away from who I was. From who I could have been. What if I was rejected? What if I was Alone? What if I Died? So I kept running and running. Fear ruled my life. Fear was my fuel. I now stand on the precipice of Death and I am taking my first breath. I am alive!