envy is good

this is the age of emotion. we all have learned, from tabloids, from our favourite soaps, from diana, that expressing your feelings is a good thing. all feelings but one, that is.
envy.
envy is bad, we know. it makes you ugly, it makes you a loser. but what, i wonder, is ambition without envy? how would we be motivated to get off our behinds and aspire to something greater, if not the desire to have what the neighbour/boss/soap star has? and why is it always rich bastards that condemn envy in *little people*?

in an adaptation of gordon gekko's *greed is good* speech:
the point is, ladies and gentlemen, that: envy, for lack of a better word, is good. envy is right; envy works. envy clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. envy, in all of its forms, envy of life, of money, of love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind and envy, you mark my words — will not only save your own ass but that other malfunctioning body called earth.