Buried In Our Obsessions

"The Mortar finally closed over the eyes of Henri Christophe, who now continued his slow decent into the entrails of a moisture that was growing less plastic. Then the corpse came to rest, one with the stone that imprisoned him." (The Kingdom of this World, Carpentier, 149-150)

I loved this part! As I read, I was amazed by how engrossed I became in what I was reading. Henri Christophe was the king and he was obsessed with building his kingdom and his fortress bigger, stronger, and more impenetrable. He was driven by the power he had as king;  he loved being able to control and do whatever he wanted to do. He captured slaves, killed people, sacrificed bulls, and whatever else it took to make the whole thing more grand and impressive. 

Eventually we read that King Henri killed himself and was buried in the mortar that was used to build this castle. He became one with the stone and one with his obsession. In life we did everything he could to build his empire and in death he was not separated from the desire. 

As I thought about this part of the story, I thought of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. I thought of Gollum and his obsession with the ring, his obsession with the power that came with it. When he first found the ring he killed his best friend just to get it. He became obsessed with the ring and he continued to go to great lengths throughout the movies to obtain it. Eventually Gollum dies in the place of the ring's origin. He jumped into the lava of Mt. Doom just to get the ring. 

Gollum died along with his dream of having his "precious". He became one with the desire that took over his life. 

I continued to think about this topic and I know that we can also allow ourselves to become obsessed with certain unhealthy things in our lives. We can overwork and leave behind our families, we can spend more time with "the guys", than with our wives, and many other things that take away our lives and leave us with nothing in the end. What are the things in our lives that do this and how can we get rid of them?