The Burden Of Bad Habits
Do not be deceived. God is not to be trifled with. What men sow they will reap. For those who sow the field of their earthly nature will from it reap decay; while those who sow the field of the spirit will from it reap enduring life.
—Paul to the Galatians.
The Burden Of An Immoral Life
Under a great gray sky, in a great powdery plain without roads, without grass, without a thistle, without a nettle, I met several men who were walking with heads bowed down.
Each one bore upon his back an enormous chimera, as heavy as a bag of flour or the accoutrements of a Roman soldier.
But the monstrous beast was not an inert weight; on the contrary, it ehveloped and oppressed the man with its elastic and mighty muscles; it fastened with its two vast claws to the breast of the bearer, and its fabulous head surmounted the brow of the man, like one of those horrible helmets by which the ancient warriors hoped to increase the terror of the enemy.
I questioned one of these men, and I asked him whether they were bound thus. He answered that he knew not, neither he nor the others; but that evidently they were bound somewhere, since they were impelled by an irresistible desire to go forward.
It is curious to note that not one of these travelers looked irritated at the ferocious beast suspended from his neck and glued against his back; it seemed as though he considered it as making part of himself. None of these weary and serious faces bore witness to any despair; under the sullen cupola of the sky, their feet plunged into the dust of a soil as desolate as the sky, they went their way with the resigned countenances of those who have condemned themselves to hope against hope forever.
—Charles Baudelaire.
Alternate Reading: John 6: 26-71.