I suppose I should say a bit about myself and how I view myself to help give some context as to how I will be perceiving the activities around me known as “Life”. I am an introverted selfish asshole. I say I am an asshole because my average opinion of people is not very high, thus making it easier on me to rationalize my opinion. I’m selfish because I seldom give of myself the way I had in my youth. I was raised a devout Catholic and still hold to many of the theories of the religion but I seldom practice them. The death of my naiveté is a metamorphosis I would undo if i wasn’t sure the world would rape me. Now this isn’t to say I’m a pessimist, I actually believe that most people are inherently good. I do also believe that people are sheep and they are being molded into an all consuming virus.
We are consumers, we are trained to buy things we don’t need and do things that don’t make sense. Our culture has moved so far beyond using what our environment provides to live a healthy happy life to the point where we now mold our environment to fit our needs. The notions of a Darwinian balance have all but died off in the wake of our technological prowess and awe inspiring ability to consume anything and everything we find has some form of use. Now maybe if we removed things surgically with almost godlike precision I wouldn’t be annoyed at this, but we don’t, we take the whole kit and caboodle. It’s not like the approach the Native American’s took. They would kill a buffalo and use every single shred of the animal for some purpose, rather we find something we can use and rape it until there is nothing left, then move onto the next warm orifice we can find. I’m sorry for the graphical imagery but it’s true, in the last 200 years we have destroyed and extinguished more life that had taken millenia to evolve without so much as a care.
I’m sure your thinking I’m rather emo and angry. Well I’m not, I’ve moved on. Our species is one that will not last the ages. We can’t keep our hands off the necks of our neighbors long enough to see that we are on a sure fire path to self destruction. We spend more and more money developing weapons and technology to destroy then we do developing health care and interstellar space technologies. We are too busy throwing rocks at each other to realize we are about to start an avalanche that will kill us all. What that avalanche is? I have no idea. Maybe it will be a series of nuclear missiles that coat the planet in radiation and kill all life, maybe we will put so much crap into the atmosphere that our environment will change so rapidly we won’t be able to adapt and we too like so many of the species we have eradicated shall fall into the past.
With that said none of those things keep me awake at night. I still sleep like a baby and have pleasant dreams. Why is that? How can my subconscious and moral training allow me to continue to consume and kill at such an alarming rate? We are born to do it, our culture embeds it into our genetics. No matter how many messiahs come and ask us nicely to not be assholes to everyone and everything, we will still be assholes. I’ve said it before I’m an asshole, but I’m trying. I’m trying to understand myself to the point that I can examine myself under a microscope and tell where the asshole ends and I begin. I intend to remove this portion of myself that makes me expect so much more.
The reason I say “Expect so much more” rather than “Want so much more” is because I feel that desire is healthy. It allows us to expand our horizons and do more. It is the expectation associated with these desires that makes life hard. If I could live an expectation free life I would never have any regrets or worries. I would simply be able to attempt to achieve my desires and continually try no matter the failure. The expense of failure is often much higher because of the emotional ties with it. A failure is often so blinding with negative emotion that it causes people to be unable to learn from it. It is one of those things that requires man to be able to pull his head out of his ass long enough to live and learn from his mistakes. Unfortunately few are able to do this which results in an almost Pavlovian life cycle that starts off with desire, attempt and failure which turns into desire with no attempt and no failure because you cannot fail if you do not try.
The few people who do break this Pavlovian cycle can be described as many things, Crazy, Intelligent and Successful are the three I appreciate the most. I find as I get older you don’t find people who are Intelligent but not “Crazy” by definition of the sheep that build the structure of our society. This is because our society really hates different. Our society is mob rule at it’s best. It is easily side tracked by the latest new story and forgets about whatever happened last week. Kind of makes you appreciate why people only get “15 minutes of fame”. It’s because that’s exactly how long our attention span is. We are more concerned with Britney and her kids then we are with a myriad of more imposing issues and problems. Most of which our present in our own lives, yet we bow down to the entertainment gods and placate ourselves with loads of mindless entertainment. I’m not saying I am above any of this. I am a drone like so many others, but the difference is I am aware of status. In my awareness I will find some way to improve my situation.
I spend countless hours analyzing my perspective on life and trying to view myself through as many other people’s eyes as I can. This is where I find my best understandings of myself which allow me to change my awareness level. It is my humble opinion that if everyone took the time to understand one another’s perspectives and situations we would be much more lenient. I know I said I am an asshole but I am a self proclaimed asshole which is kind of circular logic because to be a true asshole you really can’t admit that you are one. I spend an immense amount of energy trying to balance my environment and life. As well as help friends and family balance their lives. When I find people who are so out of balance they cannot be helped easily I tend to stay away. I keep my life drama free because drama creates stress and I’ve got enough poo flinging monkeys at work to stress me out. I don’t need to add any more feces to my life.
With that said I’ll close this with a Quote.
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success in uncommon hours.” – Henry David Thoreau