The whole opening to Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Illyich" is just sickening. Ivan's supposed "friends" are only there because they have to be. None of them care that a man is dead. They only think about the possibility of a promotion at work now that Ivan is out of the way. They want to reap in the benefits of his death. It is like they just want to show up, hear what they have won in the will, and leave in time for lunch. There is no compassion. Even Ivan's wife is contemplating what she can get from the government. You would have thought that she had planned for him to fall off the stool just to get the life insurance. People are completely selfish and greedy. Most of us do not even care who we step on to gain our own fortunes. It is a sad reality, but it is becoming more common everyday.
P.S. I commented on Kaylie's "..." post.
I also talked in my post about how materialism is becoming more and more prevalent. It's such an easy trap of the Enemy to fall into when we live in a culture where we have the mentality of "keeping up with the Jones". To keep our mind off of God, all Satan has to do is dangle something new in front of us and off we go trying to get it.
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