a relatively ancient and uncharacteristically brief rant

5.15.2002

It was the other day, I was hanging around the house, not up to very much. I don't even remember what it is that made me think it. But it was so clear, one of those everyday revelations, that seems like a dumb truism at first but slowly the truth of it creeps up on you like you've known it your whole life, and yet you never really understood what it meant until that very moment.

This is it, my bedrock, total, blanket solution to why everything in this world is so fucked up. It's like this:

People are stupid.

People are so stupid. I'm stupid. We're all stupid. We drag two thousand pounds of metal around with us to places we could walk to. We don't buckle up. We drink the water. We bark noisily about our freedom and then spend better than half our free time sitting in front of a glowing box, the omnipresent screen, symbol of totalitarianism in Orwell's 1984 (the only difference being we don't need anybody looking back on us checking up to make sure we're falling in line). We drink and drive. We smoke. We leap before we look. We jump to conclusions. We bury our heads in the sand. We want things that we refuse to have in our back yards. We throw good money after bad. We buy on credit, no money down. We don't read the fine print. We click "I Agree" without bothering to read what we've agreed to. We lie about our age. We eat junk food, and fast food. We buy soda because people we admire represent it as the beverage for people who aren't concerned with image. We watch Survivor. We ask not for whom the bell tolls. We don't think. I don't think. We're stupid. A bunch of emptors with no caveats.

Listen: I must confess, the times are many I can't envision any way out of this mess. We're that stupid. When will the hatred and the senseless killing stop? When will we ever learn to live together? It seems very hopeless.

Still, the one good thing about a singular problem is that it affords a singular solution. What can I do but take Merlin's advice to Arthur on what to do when you're sad. You learn something. I will learn something, today, tomorrow, as long as there is something left to learn. Look into your heart and you may see your part is the same.

this is what is up with this.