Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c857IR // #c857Synthesis

The cure for envy is not wanting less, it's needing more: force yourself to depend on the very people you envy, and the envy has nothing to feed on.

— In our words · Source: The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri)

[Use when]

You feel envy toward someone and want to actually dissolve it, rather than just suppress it or feel bad about it.

[Why it matters]

The envious carry the two wounds envy inflicts: "For all their lids an iron wire transpierces," sewing shut the eyes that once coveted others' fortune — and they lean: "And one sustained the other with his shoulder." The contrapasso is also the prescription: envy is a problem of the eyes and the self. Shut the covetous gaze and reopen dependence. Envy dissolves not by wanting less but by needing the other. Once you depend on someone, their good is your good.

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