The Eternal Struggle

THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE.
The fertile egg floating cosily in the warm amniotic fluid is blissfully unaware of its fate.
As the foetus is formed and the brain develops it will still be unable to foresee the traumatic experience awaiting it at the end of the gestation period.
Summarily dispatched like a cork from a bottle into a cold unknown, uninviting environment it doesn’t like it and so it exercises its vocal chords and it complains. The baby howls.
For the rest of its life it continues to howl with frustration. Then as now people will say ‘There, there’ and do nothing
Then the problems begin: Teething, nappy rash, learning to crawl to stand, to walk, infections and so on.
The child at an early age becomes aware that life is a constant battle to acquire and keep possessions and status. At school, in the workplace and in society alliances will be formed but in the final analysis we are all on our own. Contrary to John Donne’s assertion man is an island.
People achieve more and their power is strengthened by working together. Company Boards, Committees, Political Parties have their own hierarchies. The eternal struggle to succeed goes on within them and by them.
The most important alliance is within the sexes whether by marriage or other relationship. Here the struggle is at its most intense. Wholly successful marriages are as rare as gold dust and just as precious.
Two things are essential to man’s survival, air and sustenance. Air is free and plentiful. No struggle there
Sustenance is a different matter. It is man’s greatest challenge to provide food and drink either by foraging or hunting or, generally in this more civilised age by buying it.
Our living standard is wholly dependent on our income therefore the pursuit of wealth is the primary aim. Some succeed, others don’t but between those two extremes most manage to keep their heads just above or below water.
For the person with nothing the struggle is crucial. The alternative is poverty, degradation and starvation.
The plutocrat on the other hand has his problems. For many making money becomes an obsession which they will pursue at any cost long after they have made far more than they can possibly spend, working ceaselessly and often making bitter enemies along the way.

Relationships have been broken, friends betrayed, crime and fraud and even wars have been caused in the pursuit of wealth and the power it brings.
The despot is possibly the most apprehensive fearing retribution, unable to trust anyone, he is locked in his own private prison surrounded by bodyguards for fear of a coup or assassination.
For most of us as we age our problems change. The struggle then is against loneliness, illness, lack of mobility or dementia.
And then we die.
The struggle ends:
Sleepless nights, financial worries, unsuccessful relationships, exhaustion, illness and pain are no more. We are at rest.
Which poses the question? “Why do we all cling so desperately to life?
500 words