WHY ENVY?

It’s a ridiculous concept, I get it. Why would an artist take a disgusting virtue and brand his whole identity with it? What do we have to gain from it? The Lord frowns on envy. “Don’t let my kids listen to this nonsense.” Womp womp.

Straight answer? Because it’s honest.

Our entire existence was built on it; war, civilisation, religion, culture. We have the sin of envy to thank for some of the very life we live in.

If you wanna get biblical with it, sure. Eve only ate the forbidden fruit because she was sold the notion that she could be “like” God. So maybe, and hear me out here, MAYBE the first sin was to look upon the creator of the universe with jealousy and say, “Hey, I can do this too. Sheeeeeet, maybe even better!”

What else is there? The whole language barrier started because some Nimrods, pun intended, thought it would be a good idea to build a skyscraper that would stretch high into God’s kitchen. Their reason? “…we would be like God.” And so God rubs his palms together and, in Voldemort’s pitch, goes, “Avada Kedavra!” Boom! Language! Merci beaucoup. De nada!

Biblical Israel records a time when they said, “…give us a king so he can rule over us LIKE the kings of other nations do,” and ever since then, we call the Christian God the “son of David”, who happens to be a king, because Israel looked with envy on other cultures and said, “We want that too!” But we don’t talk about it in church enough, noooo… just gloss over it. We have even more records of envy being manifested in evil ways; take King Ahab and Naboth’s vineyard. Typical modern-day Israel… but I digress.

Envy has done more to craft civilisation as we know it than we give it credit for. It just gets a bad rep because it’s not monetised enough the way pride, lust, greed, sloth, gluttony and wrath are. You can’t market envy without losing your grip on your self-sustaining morals. It’s honest. It knows your true intentions and always bears your ego up front to protect itself. That’s why it’s easier to ignore.

That being said, it’s the one virtue that’s more human than the others. Even more human than we give it credit for. The glitter in your eyes when you see something beautiful, something new, something appealing that makes you think, “Damn… I wish I had a hand in that.”

We give that feeling a name. We call it Inspiration. Drive. Motivation. Cause. Reason. Everything but what it actually is.

So when Govi Nelson tells me, “I hope you don’t envy though, it’s not a great thing” (paraphrasing), I let it slide because he doesn’t understand the full concept of what it really is. But like him, most people just hear it and totally dismiss it because they have life figured out from their own perspective.

“Green means good, red means evil.”

I see Envy for what it actually is.

Human.

…

You can crucify me now.