From my solitary vantage point at the bottom of a cold, oddly-lit basement on a hazy Sunday afternoon the world seems twisted and incomprehensible. These are strange times, indeed.
Think about this — We start off as a single cell, grow and mature at a rapid pace, decomposing and rebuilding in a never-ending cycle of frantic and desperate regeneration. We allow our thinking selves to be molded into perfectly operating social machines who abide by the rules and customs and traditions of imperfect societies crafted by imperfect human minds. Should we stray from the beaten path in terms of acceptable world views or mental development, we will be shamed and ridiculed and cast out from the herd, placed indefinitely on medical, mind-altering supplements or in low-grade, over-crowded correctional facilities. Should the thinking mind take us anywhere but where they want and expect it to take us, a place of conformity and economic production, we are branded as social failures — mentally insane, atheist tree-hugging communists. Such is the sad state of existence on planet earth. Real human life, expansive spiritual and intellectual growth, is gagged and bound, replaced by the masochistic drone of stalemated political back-and-forth. Then, mercifully and unceremoniously drowned in a sea of pop-culture references and internet memes. Our planet’s political leaders resemble nothing more than children, squabbling and coming to shaky agreements on a much-larger-than-playground scale.
But then maybe that’s all life on earth really is. We learn the rules, and dutifully play the game. Should we win, we get to play the game on a bigger stage and with more pressure applied. As the stakes grow higher, the inevitable failure only creates mass anticipation, if only underneath the surface. The big players play, and the rest of us watch. The constant potential for hilarious public failure keeps the masses entertained, and their attention mercifully diverted from the things that really matter. I suppose that after centuries of fine tuning, billions upon billions of senseless deaths, war after war after war, global colonization (and the mass genocide that inevitably follows), there must be something to said for the world we live in today, where (almost) everyone can at least enjoy the basic human rights they are entitled to, but I must say, our humanity is clearly nothing more than a work in progress. It saddens me to say that I live in a time of mass poverty, starvation and inequality. I live in a rich country, and am awarded all the luxuries one could ever hope for, while billions across the globe starve as a result of others’ greed. The free-market, corporation driven system that “saved” us from communism has turned around and fucked us worse than we ever could have imagined. Exploitation of our planet, of desperate, poverty stricken people, and of ourselves is simply unacceptable, and it all comes back to that one disgusting and all-consuming vice. Greed is the motivation for all of humanity’s worst decisions. How this nauseatingly hilarious fiasco will play out in the long run can only be guessed at this point, but it sure as fucking hell ain’t going to be pretty, and I sure as hell won’t be around to see it.
And the worst part is, there are no answers.
Will one more revolution do the trick? Will an uprising of idealistic, socially and environmentally conscious masses finally “fix” the planet’s woes? Would the traditional conservative mindset allow such an uprising? How much civilian blood will be spilt in the name of preserving capitalism? Will another civil war ensue on North American soil? Will boundary lines be entirely re-written as the fabric of the capitalist institution is torn to shreds by a mass influx of electronic information? Or will cooler heads prevail, leading to the emergence of an entirely new form of democracy? The only thing of which I am certain, is that there are simply too many wildly varying opinions and ideological values running amok in North America for there to ever be any significant forward process. The majority rules however slight it may be, and the sad mental state of the majority means a sad state of political and current affairs for us. The greatest, most forward thinking and progressive minds of our time go stifled or completely unheard amidst the mass outcry for attention from everyone with an internet connection, while smooth-talking, deep-pocketed narcissistic men fill our chief executive offices and laugh at their good fortune.
We are stuck in an endless, meaningless war of words from two completely different sides of the dickhead spectrum, arguing about stupid and frivolous things like religious rights and abortion, while alternately passing and vetoing bills based on special interest and who’s filling their wallet. It’s a suspended animation of puke-in-your-mouth democracy and shit-your-pants incompetency, and it makes me sick to my stomach.
