Tuesday, March 13, 2007
I'm on a (pessimistic) role
We live in a world where the corpse of a baby is found on a roadside in a gym bag. We live in a world where little girls are raped, murdered, and buried behind houses. Our species makes war voluntarily and considers a few thousand collateral deaths as being acceptable. Love is a sarcastic witticism and unity nothing more than a dreamer's myth.
Our collective history is one dominated by destruction and exploitation on a massive scale, all of it fueled by greed and materialism. And certainly, this destruction has led to great feats of creation, but these creative movements eventually fell prey to the same human nature that created them. All of our great empires have risen and collapsed on the back of materialism. It is within our power to live as agrarian societies, taking just enough to survive and replacing what we consume with renewable resources, but we haven't had that sort of coexistence with nature in thousands of years. We made a choice to seek and acquire more than we need, and we never looked back. Take me, for instance. I have no NEED for a modified car, and surely have no NEED for a Harley-Davidson, but I desire both. I could be more generous with my time and money. I could try to be more sympathetic and understanding. We could all do more of these things, but we don't, and we won't. On some level, we are driven to acquire, gather, and collect. Some of us are more subject to the drive than others, but it is in us all. I fully recognize the empty, purposeless nature of material things. Beyond our basic needs, the only value assigned to things is purely a product of our imagination. I could drive basic transport, but I instead modify the bejesus out of my car. I could pick up a 250cc scooter and get around town just fine, but I'm going to buy a 1600cc Harley-Davidson. In both instances, my justifications are emotional, not rational. I like machines and I like for my machines to say something along the lines of "fuck you and fuck what you think".
We do not operate rationally. A rational animal does not buy things it does not need. A rational animal does not want for things that do not meet its basic life requirements. As a species, we are motivated, moved, impassioned, and destroyed by our emotions. Our species is governed not by reason, but by emotional drives and biological urges. While we have the ability to reason, we are still too primitive, in a biophysical sense, to override our basal urges under all circumstances. As a result, we seek out emotional gratification through external objects and activities. Between biology and emotion, our reasoning engine is often overwhelmed and pushed aside. Obviously, this leads to trouble.
Hatred, a byproduct of anger, insecurity, and a host of other emotions/feelings, has given us countless wars, the Holocaust, racism, sexism, etc, etc, etc. Greed, a byproduct of insecurity, fear, and so on, has given us opressive empires, a wealthy superminority, and a history of exploitation. The list can go on and on. And I am aware that there is good in this world, but I believe that anyone with any sense knows that real good, meaning real work toward a better tomorrow, is not being done by many. How many people are working toward making a real difference with their lives? How many people are looking 10, 50, or 100 years down the road and trying to do what they can to leave a positive legacy with their lives? Not many I know. I'm not even sure I'm genuinely working toward that end, and I know that I am not doing enough.
In short, I believe we're fucked until evolution does us the favor of raising the human animal's core capacity for reasoned response, or lowering the biological/irrational pressures brought to bear against our rational minds. Will we last long enough for any of that to happen? That's anyone's guess, but given our history of monumental conflict and periods of massive kill-off, I would rate our odds as being pretty long.
All of this reminds me of a favorite Tool song that I first heard when I was 17 or 18. It immediately resonated with me, and has remained one of my favorites ever since. And it goes a little somethin' like this:
Some say the end is near
Some say we'll see armageddon soon
I certainly hope we will
I sure could use a vacation from
this bullshit three ring circus sideshow of Freaks
here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA (FLA?)
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away
Any fucking time
Any fucking day
Learn to swim
I'll see you down in Arizona(Tampa?) bay
Fret for your figure
and Fret for your latte
and Fret for your hairpiece
and Fret for your lawsuit
and Fret for your prozac
and Fret for your pilot
and Fret for your contract
and Fret for your car
It's a bullshit three ring circus sideshow of freaks
here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA
The only way to fix it is to flush it all away
Any fucking time
Any fucking day
Learn to swim
I'll see you down in Arizona bay
Some say a comet will fall from the sky
Followed by meteor showers and tidal waves
Followed by faultlines that cannot sit still
Followed by millions of dumbfounded dipshits
Some say the end is near
Some say we'll see armageddon soon
I certainly hope we will
cuz I sure could use a vacation from this Silly shit, stupid shit...
One great big festering neon distraction
I've a suggestion to keep you all occupied
Learn to swim
Mom's gonna fix it all soon
Mom's comin' round to put it back the way it ought to be
Learn to swim
Fuck L Ron Hubbard and Fuck all his clones
Fuck all those gun-toting Hip gangster wannabes
Learn to swim
Fuck retro anything
Fuck your tattoos
Fuck all you junkies and Fuck your short memory
Learn to swim
Fuck smiley glad-hands with hidden agendas
Fuck these dysfunctional, insecure actresses
Learn to swim
Cuz I'm praying for rain
and I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way
I wanna watch it all go down
Mom please flush it all away
I wanna watch it go right in and down
I wanna watch it go right in
Watch you flush it all away
Time to bring it down again
Don't just call me pessimist
Try and read between the lines
I can't imagine why you wouldn't welcome any change, my friend
I wanna see it all come down
Suck it down
Flush it down
Labels: life
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both experience and intuition tell me that young people especially have strong desires to do something "altruistically" important with their lives. it's not that we're bad... it's that we get corrupted... or perhaps it's that we simply just forget about the things we used to care for...
anyway, your post reminds me of my very close friend and cousin, whose favorite quote (which he has tried to translate into a sort of a life motto) is "the things you own end up owning you," from fight club. it always amazes me how deeply he believes that, and how proactive he is about trying to combat it.
That's actually an ancient, Buddhist principle and one of the reasons the path to enlightenment requires rejecting materialism. I suppose I'm not on the path, or at least not 100% true to the way, but I'm at least aware of the fact that material goods are nothing in the grand scheme of things.
There's no way I can argue against the points that you've made. However, I really feel there is a lot of good being done as well, perhaps more than you realize. Yes, the world is still corrupt and run by power, greed, and the like, but there are also so many people out there doing good. Some may be working on the basis of their religion, but others have an innate sense to make a difference. I'm not talking about monumental things, but everyday, little things that go unnoticed by most.