George Orwell, whose classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four so prophetically predicted the nightmare of much of today’s world, also gave a graphic image of the human condition in one of his essays. He talked about a wasp that descended on his plate one day and began sucking jam from a dollop in the corner. Orwell fixed him by cutting him in half with his butter knife, then paid no more attention, going on with his meal while a tiny stream of jam trickled out of the wasp’s severed oesophagus. It was only when the wasp tried to fly away that it realised what had happened to it.
A bit like some people, I suspect, who, severed from their souls, but greedy and unaware, continue to consume life’s sweetness. Only when it’s time to fly away will they gasp their true condition.