the big lie!!!?
You’ve been told what life is supposed to be about. Grow up, do well in
school, make friends, get a girlfriend or boyfriend, get a good job, get
married, get a nice house and have kids. Watch tv, go to church, vote, find
some hobbies to entertain you. Donate money to charity. Go on vacation. Get
old, retire, spend time with the grandkids. Look back on your life with
nostalgia, look forward to the afterlife of your choosing.
This is what you’re supposed to do, this is what normal people do. This is
what everyone else is doing. Oh sure, there are a few aberrations here and
there, sometimes some people slip off this track, but you can get back on at
any time.
Of course, when you actually look at the world around you, you may see
something entirely different.
See that young married couple living next door, with the wife gardening in
the front yard while the kids play out back? She’s snowed under with Xanax
all the time, without which she’d be in a continuous state of anxiety. And
her 6 year old son, he’s following in mom’s footsteps already, taking his
daily dose of Ritalin to keep him tranquil enough to sit still all day at
school.
She stopped sleeping with her husband several years ago, but that’s ok,
cause he sneaks off a couple times a week and has sex with street
prostitutes in the back seat of his car, or a nearby motel. He feels a bit
bad for them, and tips them extra.
His favorite prostitute is always glad to see him, because he’s pleasant
enough and an easy $75. Too bad they can’t all be like him. She gets beaten
up and raped by johns multiple times a year, but that’s ok, she can handle
it, cause even at its worst this job is still better than what she went
through as a child. Besides, there’s no other way she could support her
crack cocaine habit.
And the cop who tries to arrest her, last night he arrested the neighborhood
marijuana dealer, then went home and got nice and legally drunk on jack
daniels.
And the cop’s daughter, the pretty high school cheerleader, sneaks off and
vomits after every meal so she won’t get fat.
But these are all small scale problems. Don’t forget that, several times a
century, often enough to happen at least once during the average human
lifetime, all the most powerful nations of the world divide up into sides
and begin slaughtering anyone they can find on the opposing side by the
millions. This is agreed by all to be unfortunate but necessary.
And the city you live in, if you’re in a western country and living in a
city, has already been targetted by some country’s nuclear weaponry. A few
pushes of the right buttons, and you’ll be vaporized, or survive and live in
some radioactive wasteland. But that’s ok, because it probably won’t happen
in the immediate future, so you might as well go out and buy the week’s
groceries.
Beneath the thin veneer of civilization lies a howling madness, and the
average normal human being has the ability to commit genocide during the
day, then come home and tuck the kids in at night, or to ignore the pain of
a billion people in misery while mowing the lawn or doing christmas
shopping.
The Big Lie is that all of the problems of human life are separate. If you
compartmentalize them all, you can convince yourself that once you lose that
40 pounds, or get more money, or get your husband to stop beating you, or
finally kick that addiction, you’ll be a normal happy person like everyone
else. And once you get the right politician elected, or win the war, or
convert the infidels to your religion, the world will be a happy place.
The problems of life are all symptoms of the same cause. The locks on your
doors which you need to keep out burglars, the schoolyard bully, the serial
killer, the drug addict, the drug dealer, the billionaire who thinks he’s
being exploited by the poor, the millions of soldiers fighting for peace,
the enslavement or slaughter of entire races of people, and your own
unhappiness, all are interconnected. They are all part of one problem.
I wish I could define the problem for you, or offer a solution. Human beings
seem to have a basic design flaw. We’re a fucked up species, striving to be
healthy and happy while simultaneously destroying ourselves and each other
in a million different ways.
The only positive note I can end this on is that it’s better to understand
all this than to be ignorant of it, I think.
Written by crackco on June 5th, 2009 with
15 comments.
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Tech T
#1. June 7th, 2009, at 12:09 PM.
i think exactly the same way you do………
all of this is real…….