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On Jealousy and Envy
The description of a dangerous emotion
Your neighbor has a great many expensive and well-crafted things. To want to someday have such magnificent things for yourself is by no means a lowly desire. Humanity’s progress has only ever been the product of individual wants and dreams. For it to be envy, we must not simply want what is our neighbors, but we must want them to not have it as well.
Envy is a special type of fear. It is not so noble as to be a desire for something, rather it is a desire to keep something from another. We take envy for granted, but it is one of those absurdities that could only exist within the twisted brambles of the human psyche. Only in a being that has competition interwoven into the fabric of its soul could we find an instinct to resent one another’s joy.
Envy, like every other desire, is not a consequence of any particular desirability in the object of our yearning; rather, envy is a manifestation of the perpetual game of perceived inferiority and superiority playing out between all people.
Jealousy is that species of envy that applies to what is in our possession. We are envious when we are afraid that what another possesses makes them superior to us, and we are jealous when afraid that another shall soon possess what is ours because they’re superior to us.
