Not A Thing

A word is not a thing.
An image is not a thing.
A word is an idea, expressed in sound, or set down in code.
An image is a focused group of light rays, the perception of which is an idea.
Do these ideas exist in themselves, or, as some eastern religions would have it, are just an illusion?
At some level, things have existence.
The abstraction of such reality, whether as word or image, is not the thing, and it is not a new thing, it is an idea.
Ideas run the world of man.
The world, that is to say: the planet, has a reality of its own.
Described by physics, nevertheless it changes and acts of its own volition.
The biosphere is a thing.
It too can be described by science, and it too has its own path.
The humans that occupy that thin layer are of the thing, can change the thing, but are not the thing.
The idea that humans are in charge of that thing is not the thing.
The idea of humans as God's chosen, or that they are elevated above all creation is not a thing.
It is an idea.
When that idea is accepted as true, human suffering begins.