Monday, April 21, 2008
Now squeeze...
Life feels claustrophobic, as if the bullshit and nonsense of modern life function as massive walls of granite slowly crawling together, so that the sense of being Han Solo stuck in the Death Star's trash compactor is becoming more and more tangible with time. A pervasive feeling that there is no escape from the ceaseless ridiculousness of humanity creates a subliminal sense of tension. From the tumbling economy to crumbling monogamy to mumbling hegemony, we are a fucking mess. As I fear for the job that buys my $3.65/gallon gas, politicians with no good intentions pay lip service to the genitals of corporate "America". How much America remains in the average American? The dream that never was is being spat out like so much extracted ejaculate, but those same mouths keep chanting "believe…believe…believe" and stupid ears keep pricking up, their mouths dutifully shaping the words "I believe…I believe…I believe". Without any idea what to believe in, and no will to seek their own answers, they plug in and let the answers be spoon fed down their throats.
What was once a rugged, idealistic, individualistic spirit has given way to unadulterated conformity and cowardice. We have taken what could have been a tapestry woven in vibrant, beautiful colors and turned it into the ubiquitous brown blanket the world reproduces ad nauseum. Wasted opportunity is wasted time and it seems pretty clear that much of our current time is being flushed, rather than invested. The America we have all been promised was little more than a makeup coated pig, and the drug soaked Boomers responsible for all this pork have plainly failed miserably in their quest to redefine the world. What choice do we have but to react and explore new directions? What choice do we have but positive action? Plenty, actually, and most of them seem to involve doing nothing at all. Watching television, being less involved with our own governance, producing little or nothing of any tangible value, changing little or nothing of significance, this is the new American way. We have become a people who avoid the responsibility of self-governance because it permits an escape from personal accountability. Handing control over to others creates an hallow of separation in which to hide when those others make a mistake or inevitably give into corruption. Laziness also plays a role, as the work required to make a Way, rather than following in the well worn footsteps of others, is more than the average individual is willing to shoulder.
Following others gives the follower freedoms from guilt that are not available to leaders and creators. Followers are free to claim a righteous path, while holding tight to the idea that someone else is to blame if things go wrong. The follower can tacitly participate in something as heinous as the holocaust, or something as insidious as the anti-labor movement infecting modern America, without having to take personal responsibility for any of it. Apathetic conformists are the engines that drive social destruction. As surely as they will be the first to condemn leadership in a crisis situation, they are the first to fall in line behind whoever is willing to lead.
Is your credit record a financial car accident with your credit score dipping into the double digits? Can you no longer afford your mortgage payment because your variable interest loan exploded? Blame the mortgage company and look for a government bail out. Are you the executive of a sup-prime lender that ended up getting burned because your company granted loans to people with credit reports resembling an Iraqi marketplace after a Sunni car bomb? Blame market forces and receive a government bail out.
Personal accountability is almost nil in the modern age. Industrialists escape guilt by hiding behind corporations, who answer to no one, and the proletariat escapes blame by hiding behind their childhoods, social pressures, or some other hardship. Where the only reasonable explanation is to put it on one's self and strive toward improvement, most people put their troubles on others and strive toward mediocrity, taking the rest of society down with them. The only way something as large and as powerful as America collapses is from within and the internal corrosion that brings such a monolithic power down starts with the people. I do not think there is anyone who can sincerely characterize modern America as a visionary, just, or thriving society.
More and more, Americans are becoming a people who are out of work, short on inspiration, and increasingly dependent on drugs, legal or otherwise, to quell their fears and anxiety. We have lost the fire that fueled us, and have begun giving in to fear. The only outcome of succumbing is the handing over of control to those who are not afraid. Unfortunately, that means giving the reins over to the same types of people that have benefited from fear since time immemorial, the greedy and power hungry. The decay is all around us, and it is fed by the collective efforts to ignore or redefine it. Yet people in Pennsylvania are offended when Barack Obama talks about “bitter Americans”, when everyone knows America is becoming more and more bitter by the day. They sink in the morass even as they deny its existence, so the walls continue squeezing, the space continues narrowing, and somewhere Darth Vader is having a laugh.
Labels: life or the lack thereof
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