Well if I go to hell, then I hope I burn well.
I've been unable to update my blog for the last few days. I've been trying, but I keep getting pissed off at whatever I write and just saving it to my hard drive. Looking at the list, I see that I have sometimes three to four a day that I was going to post that never made it up here. In fact, as things are going, this probably won't make it up there either.
There is something profound in pure stupidity.
I was going to the store today. And I went there, and I got some stuff. And then I came home.
I was going to the store today, and I noticed that there was one of those retaining walls on the side of the mountain that our apartments our on. Of course, I've noticed this in the past, but I was just thinking about it, in terms of how it actually worked to keep the side of the mountain from falling onto the road. After I passed it, I looked behind me to take one last look at it and suddenly I heard my car make a loud slamming sound and I was jarred from my seat. I turned back around to realize that I was on the sidewalk, and there was a fire hydrant directly in front of me. It was coming up fast, as I was going about thirty five mph's and I managed to swerve to avoid it at the last moment. Getting back on the road and having a slightly heightened adrenelin rush, I thought to myself, this isn't the first time I've been nearly killed because of my bad skills in Geology Flashback scene: Cockpit of the Millenium Falcon ME: He's heading for that small moon! Obi-wan Kenobi: That's no moon...
Once I arrived at the store, there was plenty of parking, and I walked inside, not really sure what I wanted other then some soda and some milk, and also a brush, for my long flowing locks. Anyway, I spent about a half hour just pacing around the store, looking at this and that, enjoying my time in the store. I've always liked wandering around in stores. It gives me time to refect on everything, but not reflecting on anything. I see food, I see magazines, I see candy, I see booze. There are far too many things in that store that grab my attention and pull my thoughts away from the outside world. There are other shoppers, all in the same daze. Just wandering from place to place in the store. They appear to have no direction to their wanders, but I know better, most of them don't enjoy the spledore of the store. There is so much there. I heard a story once, and I don't know if it was true, but there was the story of an ex-KGB agent who, after betraying the crumbling USSR, came to America to work with the CIA. Once inside the country, they wanted to show him around, this was somewhere in the midwest, I believe. They took him to a store. Just a regular grocery store, to show him where to go and what to do in order to get food for himself. He thought it was a trick. He believed that this was a Government warehouse of food. Surely, there could not be this much food made available to just any citizen who had the money to pay for it. They took him to store after store, still he continued to disbelieve. It was only after he was able to walk around the city streets and look at everything that was for sale to anyone who wanted it that he began to realize just how far better off our country was than his crumbling economy. I don't know where I heard this story, maybe on a movie, who knows? But it doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter if it was true or not, because when I walk into a store, I try to look at it through the eyes of a man from a country where people are struggling to get enough rice to fill their bellys for the day. I think "what if we lost all of this? A war, famine, plague, bombs going off, any number of things and this could be taken away in an instant." It doesn't seem feasible that we could lose grocery stores, not have enough food. We have too much food, some would say, we are all growing fat off the land. But what if it was all taken away? These are the sorts of thoughts that keep me up at night.
I wonder if we are even ready to face the reality of our system of government. We complain a lot, as Americans, and why not? It is our god-given right as an American to complain about everything. EVERYTHING. It's not a bad to complain if you don't like the way things are going, but there is a difference between yelling at a fifteen year old girl working at mcdonalds and complaining about corporations (like mcdonalds) taking over the government itself. Regardless of if you believe that is true, you have to see the difference. But the reality of our system of government is that it is building its, well, lets say "super-economy" on the blood and tears of millions of people. Not just Americans, but people from all over the world. Think sweat-shops. Inevitably, every system of government that has existed on the backs of the workers, which is, sadly, almost every government, has fallen. And Empires fall. Maybe not for a thousand years will we, as the USA, fall, but we will fall, there will be a day when we are no longer the big threat that we are today. So all I wonder is, what if that happens in my lifetime? What if one day I have to line up for three hours just to get bread? What if one day I have to go work in a labor camp because some other country is occupying us and they don't like something about me?
We all like to think that we are untouchable, but we are only untouchable so long as no one can reach. The second they grow the last few inches they need, we will no longer be untouchable. It is, really, only a matter of time before every government in the world is no more. "ON a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." So as I walk through enough food to feed thousands of people for weeks, I wonder what it will be like when it catches up to us.
I bought my items from the store, and I went home. I was happy with my new food. I've been trying to get out of the whole "materialistic" thing, but there are still some things that I very much enjoy buying and having. Mostly food. But no matter my views on our consumer economy, there is no way that this pace can keep itself going forever. It isn't self-sustainable, and it isn't going to change until there is some sort of revolution. But hopefully that will be an intellectual revolution, and we will shed the fairy-tale ideas of our country and see it for what it is, and we will all, collectivally, sigh and change our lives, and allow the world to start healing itself.
There is something profound in pure stupidity.
I was going to the store today. And I went there, and I got some stuff. And then I came home.
I was going to the store today, and I noticed that there was one of those retaining walls on the side of the mountain that our apartments our on. Of course, I've noticed this in the past, but I was just thinking about it, in terms of how it actually worked to keep the side of the mountain from falling onto the road. After I passed it, I looked behind me to take one last look at it and suddenly I heard my car make a loud slamming sound and I was jarred from my seat. I turned back around to realize that I was on the sidewalk, and there was a fire hydrant directly in front of me. It was coming up fast, as I was going about thirty five mph's and I managed to swerve to avoid it at the last moment. Getting back on the road and having a slightly heightened adrenelin rush, I thought to myself, this isn't the first time I've been nearly killed because of my bad skills in Geology Flashback scene: Cockpit of the Millenium Falcon ME: He's heading for that small moon! Obi-wan Kenobi: That's no moon...
Once I arrived at the store, there was plenty of parking, and I walked inside, not really sure what I wanted other then some soda and some milk, and also a brush, for my long flowing locks. Anyway, I spent about a half hour just pacing around the store, looking at this and that, enjoying my time in the store. I've always liked wandering around in stores. It gives me time to refect on everything, but not reflecting on anything. I see food, I see magazines, I see candy, I see booze. There are far too many things in that store that grab my attention and pull my thoughts away from the outside world. There are other shoppers, all in the same daze. Just wandering from place to place in the store. They appear to have no direction to their wanders, but I know better, most of them don't enjoy the spledore of the store. There is so much there. I heard a story once, and I don't know if it was true, but there was the story of an ex-KGB agent who, after betraying the crumbling USSR, came to America to work with the CIA. Once inside the country, they wanted to show him around, this was somewhere in the midwest, I believe. They took him to a store. Just a regular grocery store, to show him where to go and what to do in order to get food for himself. He thought it was a trick. He believed that this was a Government warehouse of food. Surely, there could not be this much food made available to just any citizen who had the money to pay for it. They took him to store after store, still he continued to disbelieve. It was only after he was able to walk around the city streets and look at everything that was for sale to anyone who wanted it that he began to realize just how far better off our country was than his crumbling economy. I don't know where I heard this story, maybe on a movie, who knows? But it doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter if it was true or not, because when I walk into a store, I try to look at it through the eyes of a man from a country where people are struggling to get enough rice to fill their bellys for the day. I think "what if we lost all of this? A war, famine, plague, bombs going off, any number of things and this could be taken away in an instant." It doesn't seem feasible that we could lose grocery stores, not have enough food. We have too much food, some would say, we are all growing fat off the land. But what if it was all taken away? These are the sorts of thoughts that keep me up at night.
I wonder if we are even ready to face the reality of our system of government. We complain a lot, as Americans, and why not? It is our god-given right as an American to complain about everything. EVERYTHING. It's not a bad to complain if you don't like the way things are going, but there is a difference between yelling at a fifteen year old girl working at mcdonalds and complaining about corporations (like mcdonalds) taking over the government itself. Regardless of if you believe that is true, you have to see the difference. But the reality of our system of government is that it is building its, well, lets say "super-economy" on the blood and tears of millions of people. Not just Americans, but people from all over the world. Think sweat-shops. Inevitably, every system of government that has existed on the backs of the workers, which is, sadly, almost every government, has fallen. And Empires fall. Maybe not for a thousand years will we, as the USA, fall, but we will fall, there will be a day when we are no longer the big threat that we are today. So all I wonder is, what if that happens in my lifetime? What if one day I have to line up for three hours just to get bread? What if one day I have to go work in a labor camp because some other country is occupying us and they don't like something about me?
We all like to think that we are untouchable, but we are only untouchable so long as no one can reach. The second they grow the last few inches they need, we will no longer be untouchable. It is, really, only a matter of time before every government in the world is no more. "ON a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." So as I walk through enough food to feed thousands of people for weeks, I wonder what it will be like when it catches up to us.
I bought my items from the store, and I went home. I was happy with my new food. I've been trying to get out of the whole "materialistic" thing, but there are still some things that I very much enjoy buying and having. Mostly food. But no matter my views on our consumer economy, there is no way that this pace can keep itself going forever. It isn't self-sustainable, and it isn't going to change until there is some sort of revolution. But hopefully that will be an intellectual revolution, and we will shed the fairy-tale ideas of our country and see it for what it is, and we will all, collectivally, sigh and change our lives, and allow the world to start healing itself.