Envy is still a capital sin

Many try to mask envy with any kind of "ism" out there.

One of my infinite number of secret pleasures is to scroll on gossip pages on Facebook, right after I finish a long day in front of the pc for work. I enjoy the lightness of articles on who is dating who, who is using what miraculous diet and who has cheated on who. This post in particular was about how a certain local celebrity in Italy looked extremely young despite her age. The majority of comments were going along the lines of “she doesn’t show her age because she does not have to work odd jobs as we do”. Others instead called out on the envious ones. A comment section that gathered all remaining desperate housewives and middle-aged Italian ladies out there. And that was moving in its honesty and simplicity. I, for one second, imagined the freedom one must experience in being openly envious or, at least, not mask it. My generation has intellectualized even envy, one of the most common emotions out there. 

The thing is, my generation would not be able to display such blatant envy or call out on it. It has tried to envelop envy in what is called “social justice”. Somebody flies to nice destinations too often, while you are working at home without air conditioning? You call out on him for “destroying the planet”. Somebody is buying a lot of skin care products? You call out on consumerism or inquire about the ingredients of those creams. “Are they vegan enough?” Somebody buys a lot on second-hand platforms because are trying to be environmentally conscious. “Well, that somebody is buying way too much”. The level of moral inquisition is so high that I wish we could go back to Middle age for half an hour to see whether these people would dare to criticize others for their lifestyle anyway. Despite no flights, not many clothing choices and food at disposal. The thing is that many envious people will never us the chance to see what they would do if there were in the place of people they so much criticized. Envy will prevent them from working hard.

My generation is also one that believes online petitions are an effective way of doing politics and being active citizens. And for this reason, I am thinking of launching a petition to remind people that envy is still very much a capital sin. Instinctively they seem to know it because they try so hard to hide it, pretending that all see in others and lack themselves and is a conscious responsible choice on their side. Covering envy with a badge of cheap activism. But I aspire to a society that consciously perceives envy as a bad feeling. As a bad but human feeling. Because it is only the feelings we correctly identify that can be processed and transformed into something useful. Perhaps the accessibility of other people’s lives that social media brought in has made coming to terms with envy a task of massive proportions. We are bombarded with pictures of vacations, new cars, and new jobs of people we barely know. To make it worst, since they are not in our close circle we have no clue about the process that got them where they are. We only see the end result and this makes it seem effortless. 

(Picture taken at the airport last week, Envy sells)

But effortlessness cannot inspire admiration, it can only bring envy. Envy is the ugly stepsister of admiration. Admiration is the evolved and enlightened version of envy. Envy is destructive, admiration is constructive. Envy discourages, and admiration encourages action. It would be simply shameful to envy someone we see struggling to get somewhere and then succeed. In that case, shame would somehow prevent us from giving moral lessons to someone who has worked hard to get somewhere. By not recognizing and naming envy for what it is, we are in fact losing an opportunity. Because envy is a great GPS for desire. It shows you what you want in an intuitive manner. However, social media is also a tool that has turned any kind of success into a faster one. Business. One-click, one post, one song and then you “boom”. Envy is an emotion inspired by what is easy or what seems to be. Its nature is provoked by short-termed endeavours and quick wins. This is why we follow so many “lifestyle” accounts of people whose starting point we know little to nothing about. We envy them, we would probably do whatever to take their place and since we are not likely to ever cross their path we scrutinize their behavior against our newly found criteria: environmentalism, feminism etc. Envy in present days is covered by all the “ism” present out there. 

But envy takes an even more ugly side when this undeclared feeling of inferiority that stems from ignorance comes from people that are closer to us. I was surprised many times to hear some acquaintances and distant cousins tell me “you are so lucky…”. I was shocked of discovering someone could even envy me. But, they had seen how “lucky” I was from social media. We do not know, thus we envy. Social media has become a breeding ground for envy and depression because we all more or less consciously or not want to inspire envy. Since then I have made it an unwritten rule to be as real as possible on those platforms about my failures, difficulties and shortcomings without ever making them a badge of honor either. We all know that in an attempt of being more open and honest and of overturning this trend, on LinkedIn, people exaggerate their misfortunes, almost being ashamed of glimpses of luck and help in their life. The result is a pathetic pantomime of a life full of disasters that miraculously turned over into success. 

It is when envy is directed to our closest circles that things get even nastier. Because these are people we could reach. If they are also lying about their lives, heavily editing their stories and forgetting to mention how they got to what they got to, it is then we really see that it is social media using us and not us using it anymore. While we cannot buy the private plane on which Kendall Jenner flies, we might get tempted to buy that designer bag we do not need and that we saw an acquaintance post. Little do we know that she has a discount from a relative or so. Envy is really transforming us into omnivorous consumers, but it is “admiration” we must seek. And that takes work on both sides and being honest on the Internet or not being there at all. 

Vilma Djala