Editorial February 19, 1996 Issue

Supply: fantasy or reality?

Heloísa G. Rivas

Strolling through the beautiful Piazza del Duomo in Milan, Italy, on a sunny day, we saw children dressed in lovely costumes: Pierrots, Columbines, kings, queens, sailors, and pirates. They were playing, pretending to be the characters their costumes represented. What an innocent way of having a good time! The same scene is repeated year after year. It was Mardi Gras, the last day of Carnival.

In other parts of the world, the celebration lasts several days. Not only children, but adults too, participate in parties, balls, shows, and parades, which give them an exhilarating feeling of happiness. The most famous places for these are Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, and New Orleans, in the United States, where many people spend the whole year and most of their savings in preparing and sewing their magnificent costumes. How long does this happiness last? How much comfort does it offer, in meeting the needs of society?

It is certainly a time to express joy, vitality, and creativity, but it can also be a world of dreamlike fantasy and illusion that offers just a few days of extreme amusement! Does it alleviate the problems for the rest of the year? Or is it merely an opportunity to forget the harshness of people's experience, such as poverty, inadequacies, lack of opportunities? What is the best way to achieve some degree of lasting happiness and satisfaction? No matter how beautiful Mardi Gras costumes may be, or how original and captivating the music and songs composed for the event may sound, human fantasy is never the way to an answer. The only true way is the way leading to spiritual reality, to a perception of everyone's true, Godlike individuality and identity. This way was taught and demonstrated by Christ Jesus.

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