Green Eyed Monster

Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

-Othello, III.iii

I once heard the difference between Jealousy, Envy, and Covetousness described thusly:

Jealousy: When your neighbor comes home with a brand new, LEGO® Millennium Falcon™ (not the $200 one, we’re talking the $850 one) and you  really, really want one of your own, so you go out and buy one of your own.

Envy: When you wait until your neighbor is out of the house and steal their LEGO® Millennium Falcon™ because you really, really want it and you don’t want your neighbor to have the same thing as you.

Covetousness: When you go over to your neighbor’s house and destroy their LEGO® Millennium Falcon™ set, we’re talking about not just smashing it all to pieces, but taking a blowtorch to it, melting pieces into a huge pile of plastic, because if you can’t have it, then no one should be able to have it.

These emotions are very common to mankind, as anyone who has the experienced a friend preening that they were into a music band before it was cool or has witnessed a child throwing a tantrum because his sibling is playing with his toys can tell you. At their heart, all these emotions share in a common tendency of humans, to compare oneself to others.

Now comparisons are not in and of themselves sinful. After all, comparisons are one of the means we not only come to understand reality itself but our own place in it. On the freeway, it would be extremely burdensome to always be checking one’s own speed on the speedometer rather than judging and comparing one’s own speed by maintaining pace with traffic. Likewise, one of the Quinque viæ, the traditional five proofs of God’s existence is the Argument from Gradation, which holds that because we note that some things are less good or some things are better than others (or in the words of Aquinas, “among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble, and the like”.) then there must be something that is maximally good or maximally true, which we call God.

While natural, the problem arises when we compare ourselves to others and misattribute the disparity in qualities each possesses as something that not only belongs in our column rather than theirs but is a finite resource that is transferable. Thus, a man may think that the object of his affection would be his if only he could be rid of his troublesome rival. 

Or take the example of King Saul and his reaction to David. Saul’s issues, and there were many, stem from his own anxieties, fears, and lack of trust in God. In David we see someone who does not share in the failings (but of course, he has his own set to deal, or not deal with) but Saul’s jealousy of David’s blessings, quickly becomes envy, and finally, covetousness. Of course, elimination of David would never result in his blessings becoming Saul’s, but that’s not the way destructive emotions work.

But that leads to the question of how to deal with these emotions, but that will have to wait until another time. Right now, I have to figure out how to get my hands on a LEGO® Millennium Falcon™