'With a Rebel Yell, She Cried . . .'

Suzanna Logan is nowadays sojourning in my hometown of Atlanta, where young hearts go to be broken:

Rather than being satisfied and thankful that God has placed me in the position where He wants me to be right now, which just happens to involve some pretty mundane tasks, I want more. More responsibilities, more recognition, more, more, more. . . .

You should read the whole thing. An ambitious young person's craving for "more, more, more" is a tendency to which an aged megalomaniac like me can relate, as I pursue this insane scheme to take over the entire freaking blogosphere.

We are all born with a God-shaped hole in our hearts, and it is a sinful but entirely commonplace error to attempt to fill that void with earthly things, including career status and achievement.

That Miss Logan should so earnestly resist that temptation is, to me, most remarkable. For I think there is nothing that an ugly man covets so much as beauty, with which Miss Logan has been so richly blessed. Plain and homely people often envy the beautiful -- how else to explain the unseemly viciousness with which Sarah Palin has been attacked? -- but envy is the most foolish emotion.

How many times have I been surprised to discover that someone whom I might have regarded enviously was, unbeknownst to me, enduring some secret and horrible pain in their life? After numerous repetitions of this pattern, I ought not be surprised any longer, yet I always am. We who are poor, obscure, weak and ugly always imagine how endlessly wonderful life is for the rich, famous, influential and beautiful.

That we somehow find comfort in this fantasy -- if only through the perverse rationalization of sour grapes -- says more about us than about the objects of our envy.