Ductility

Why do human beings covet gold?

Its most astonishing property is ductility

Substances that are ductile can be drawn out

Beaten or stretched, formed into wires or leaves

Beauty beaten thin enough to cover worlds in a scintillating skin

No matter the trivial worthlessness of the covered thing

No matter the vile ugliness of what lies beneath

A shining, lovely mask can be formed to make mud seem glorious

This is our loftiest ambition, our secret, intoxicating fantasy

To make what is lowest seem highest

To make what is diabolical seem angelic

To make a lie seem true

To make evil seem to glow with genuine goodness

To cover a despicable serpent in precious, incandescent scales

What does this reveal about our nature?

We love illusions

Ductile can also describe an individual

As readily beaten or stretched or led along

Obedient and malleable

Eager to be shaped by the will of another

Is this how we wish others were?

Not ends-in-themselves, with their own goals and projects and desires

But mere means: tools that can be readily employed to achieve our ends

Instruments that can be played to make music written by our minds

Gold gladly covers our tracks

Gold glitters and glows and goes where we like

Gold can be exchanged for anything

It is the mask of magic, for sale!

A delectable, dancing disguise

Empty, waiting to be filled

With our own blotched and bungling folly

Gold can disguise any grotesque goon as a god

Is it really such a mystery

Our gluttony for gold?