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The Dismal Science and the Meaning of Life

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(“Meaning of Life Merit Badge”, 2010, original oil)

The Dismal Science and the Meaning of Life

Supply and demand is as basic and Nobel a
Truth
As you can get.
If you doubt, just hold your breath a minute
And notice the urgency that quickly builds.

Somehow in man’s quest for meaning
Aka the creation of religion, or “dharma”,
The sacred and the secular
Became divided into the pure and tainted.

To this day too many religious people dismiss
The need to study economic truths
As too profane
Beneath their lofty ideals and pure aspiration.

What they’re really saying is they want to avoid 
The messy complexities of human desire
And the limits of this material world; ie.
The market place of actually being human.

So whole institutions arose to encourage this escape
Clergy in their cloisters, hermits with their hermetics
A class above, in ivory tower, and lonely cave
So the worries of this world could be left behind.

But this world of woe and constant sorrow
Is also the world of perfect attainment
Where our karmas always ripen
And wishes sometimes do come true.

What other world 
Could these human experiences of ups and downs
Happen in anyway,
Since this is our world and our experience?

If you give a moose a muffin
They will always ask you for another.
And on and on
Until there is no supply left to meet demand.

But the question becomes
Did increasing demand lead to increasing satisfaction 
As the supplies dwindled and costs rose?
Most likely it was the opposite.

Because with every acquisition
Comes the building of a habit
Until what is left is an insatiable addiction.
If you doubt, just hold your breath for a minute…

(8/5/25)

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Bill Baker

Date: 8/5/2025 3:23:00 PM

Hince extinction and valuable resource no longer available at a profit. Living a life of enough is enough may solve this problem as an individual. I enjoyed your thoughts on supply and demand through this poetry, James. Write On! my friend. Bill p.s. If you check out the story of the Israelites leaving Egypt, in the Bible; you'll find God supplied all their needs, one day at a time. They were to only retrieve as much as they would consume. There is a precedence for how life can be lived without raping the planet for our uncontrollable desires. (Yes, this is a simplified version of a potential solution.) Just something to think about. A poet friend in Texas, Bill

James Moore
Date: 8/5/2025 5:12:00 PM

As they say, moderation in everything (the “middle way”) is the key to a satisfied mind. Obvious, yes? Yet the examples of excess are all around us… Thanks for sharing the Biblical example of a middle way solution Bill.