Why us?

   In "Walden," Henry David Thoreau wrote that it is true for man, as is for all creatures; that water, food, and shelter are the only requirements to successfully sustain life. The only true necessities of life.
It can be deduced then, that all of the other facets of life that man deems a necessity; fashionable clothing or shoes, decadent houses, cars, even cooked food, is not really a necessity but a comfort invented by man himself. This idea is most elaborated upon in today's world. Today we say that a certain level of transportation, mostly the personal automobile, or a certain level of income or status in our community or career is deemed necessity. We have lost all touch with the knowledge and understanding that these are man made ideas, nothing more, and that true necessity still resides in being fed, sheltered, and well hydrated.
But yet, millions of people have one foot in the grave, digging it deeper day by day trying to achieve these ideas that are mistaken as necessity in today's world. So far removed we have become, that when a man stands his ground and proclaims that food, water, and shelter are all he needs and nothing more, he is labeled destitute, lazy, or a failure to make anything of the life he has been given.
   I have always asked, even in my younger years, before any concept of a living was to be had, what exactly separated us from other animals. "Explain to me," I would question of anyone I could, "why just because we have logic, reason, and thought, we are suddenly expected to work and drive automobiles, and concern ourselves with responsibility and obligation? Why just because some scientists come along and make things a certain way over the centuries, man cannot choose to live like as it once was? Roaming the vast prairies hunting and gathering his food, rising and sleeping as he sees himself awake and tired, instead of having to live his life by the clock!Why must we feel that we have to live in little boxes, and work in little boxes, and ride in a little box to and from work, trading our time for money, and allowing our personal level of stress to be a major deciding factor in our level of health?"
   Now obviously it wasn't quite as in-depth a question as it now has become, but the main idea was there.
Being a man of almost thirty now, I simply ask more people more often. Because for the life of me, I cannot understand how any man can say with a stern face, that his entire purpose within his lifetime is to be a hard worker; to build a strong house and a stronger family, to build up and stash away his fortune like a squirrel preparing for the harsh months of winter, to trade hours, weeks, years of his life for said fortune, and to be an upstanding character of moral code and conduct in his community. I say that any man that is living his life that way is not living his life for himself at all, but rather for everyone else. Instead of choosing what he deems important in life and not being afraid to live his life that way, no matter how "against the grain" it is in today's world, he is living to fulfill the ideas that society has established.
   The solid truth of the matter is that upon the day that death comes to claim us, nothing we have worked or toiled so hard to achieve in the physical world will have any weight in the world beyond. A heart attack will kill a homeless man in an alley, drunk on whiskey, just as fast and effectively as a millionaire and visionary surrounded by loved ones at Sunday dinner.
Just remember that, and think about what you believe is an absolute necessity in your life.