parsley teardrops

what is it about human beings that looks at a pile of snow or sand or dirt or rocks or legos and decides to build something? we have this endless creative obsession--which is not to say that all of us are artistic, only that we want to create. we are endlessly prolific and we are never satisfied. and, to top this, everything we create creates problems that require us to create more stuff. in the myth of prometheus, epimethius gives all of the physical strengths to the rest of the animal kingdom. prometheus looks in the jar of good traits, and there is nothing left. so, prometheus gives the homosapiens this...thing. it's difficult to describe. i suppose it could be called curiosity. not pandora-type curiosity, but philosopher-type curiosity. have you ever seen the sculptures of early man at the natural history museum? we are so naked, so soft and vulnerable. we have no armor. we just have pointy sticks. but even in this, we are ahead.
there is another element as well, and this is the selfish one. human beings are selfish. there is no way to get around this. we may be idealists, but even the most hardcore communist is a little bit greedy. humans are naturally capitalists. we want to build stuff, get stuff, take stuff, get ahead, win, be the the alpha male, etc. this is why communism never works on a grand scale. people may agree with it theoretically, but instinctively they want to win.
this is why patriarchy won. from my small amount of knowledge of these things, matriarchy is a family-style society; everyone works for the greater good of the people. patriarchy is the opposite; if you can enslave people to build a really big house for you after you're dead, go ahead. good for you.
this is why i think that we still have problems. while our curious side is intrigued by the puzzle of human suffering and our matriarchal side wants to help, we don't want to give things up. we think that the idea of living significantly less luxurious lives for the good of abstract ideas or people we don't know is stupid. and i am not condemning us for that, i am simply stating that this attitude causes problems.

or perhaps this is just how we feel in america.