In every age, the world has been peopled by three distinct orders of humanity, each walking its own path under the same sun, yet perceiving life through different lenses. Their destinies are not merely personal choices but reflections of the larger drama of civilization. From the bustling markets to the towering palaces, and finally to the solitary chambers of thought, these three categories reveal the manifold ways in which man confronts—or evades—the mysteries of existence.

The first category are those who live and die in the rhythm of buying and selling. Their lives are reduced to consumption, their days measured by the appetite of the body rather than the hunger of the soul. They are the inheritors of what William Wordsworth lamented in his immortal sonnet The World is Too Much With Us:
“Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours.”
For these men and women, the world is a banquet table, and life itself is a feast. Eating and drinking become the central aim, the axis around which their existence revolves. They are gluttons not merely in the literal sense but in the spiritual one: they consume without reflection, they devour without pause. Yet paradoxically, they are happy. They do not trouble themselves with questions of destiny, of death, of the purpose of creation. To them, the mysteries of the universe are burdens best left untouched.
In their laughter, one hears the echo of Epicurus, who taught that pleasure is the highest good. But unlike Epicurus, who distinguished between noble and base pleasures, these modern disciples of appetite rarely discern. They live in the present moment, content with bread and wine, indifferent to eternity.
The second category are those who compete in every sphere of life. Their ambition is not to eat but to conquer, not to drink but to display. They are the builders of gigantic structures, the dwellers in lavish palaces, the wearers of garments woven with pride. Their aim is to showcase status at every stage of life, to inscribe their names upon the walls of history through wealth, power, and spectacle.
They are the heirs of the Pharaohs who raised pyramids, of the Caesars who built coliseums, of the modern magnates who erect skyscrapers that pierce the clouds. Their creed is competition, their scripture is success. They measure themselves not against the mysteries of the cosmos but against the achievements of their rivals.
In their indifference to the deeper questions of existence, they resemble the merchant in the Qur’anic verse who is warned: “Rivalry in worldly increase distracts you, until you visit the graves.” Their lives are a race, their deaths a sudden halt. They do not pause to ask: What is man? What is the universe? What lies beyond the veil of mortality? Yet society often crowns them as victors. Their names are engraved on monuments, their wealth admired, their power feared. But beneath the glitter lies a silence, for they too evade the ultimate questions.
The third category are those who cannot evade. They are the thinkers, the observers, the philosophers who take life seriously and refuse to reduce it to consumption or competition. They are haunted by questions: Why are we here? What is the aim of life? What is death? Who is God?
Their existence is marked not by happiness but by pangs. They carry the burden of thought, and thought is often a heavy cross. As Søren Kierkegaard once confessed, “My sorrow is my castle.” These men and women dwell in castles of sorrow, yet their sorrow is luminous, for it reveals truths hidden from the eyes of the glutton and the competitor.
They are the heirs of Socrates, who declared that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” They are the disciples of Rumi, who saw in every pain a doorway to wisdom. They are the companions of Camus, who wrestled with the absurdity of existence yet refused to surrender to nihilism.
But their fate is loneliness. They never remain happy, for happiness is too shallow a garment for the depth of their souls. They express the pangs of life in poetry, in philosophy, in silence. They are the prophets of impermanence, the heralds of mortality, the guardians of meaning.
What do these three categories reveal about humanity? They show that man is torn between appetite, ambition, and awareness. The first order lives in the body, the second in society, the third in the soul. Each has its own truth, its own peril.
The children of consumption remind us of the joy of simple pleasures, yet they risk wasting their powers. The architects of competition remind us of the grandeur of human achievement, yet they risk forgetting the grave. The burdened thinkers remind us of the depth of existence, yet they risk drowning in sorrow.
Perhaps the secret lies in balance. As the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught, “Work for your world as if you will live forever, and work for your hereafter as if you will die tomorrow.” To consume without reflection is folly, to compete without conscience is vanity, to think without joy is despair.
In the end, every man must choose his order. Will he live as a consumer, content with bread and wine? Will he live as a competitor, erecting monuments of pride? Or will he live as a thinker, wrestling with mysteries that have no easy answer?
The world is inhabited by all three, and perhaps it must be so. For without the consumer, there is no laughter; without the competitor, no grandeur; without the thinker, no wisdom. Together they form the tapestry of humanity, woven with threads of appetite, ambition, and awareness.
Yet one truth remains: the grave awaits all three. And when the dust covers the glutton, the magnate, and the philosopher alike, only the questions will endure.

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