Would this qualify as a troll?

Three months until my 29th birthday. Wild, no? Saturn comes back around.

Howie crouches by the sliding glass door. He seems relaxed. He’s just watching. His predatory instincts are still intact despite his cushy life. Like us.

Why do we try so hard to suppress our predatory nature? Why have we gone out of our way to mold our world into one in which we don’t have to go get our food? Going to the grocery store doesn’t count. I’m not all about having to slog through the muddy woods on a freezing November morning to get a deer, but I refuse to forget that the reason why I have to have a job is because it’s the way I get money to give to the people who get my food for me. But it’s not like they’re slogging through the woods, either. It’s been said a million times by a million other people, but I’ll say it again. We are too far removed from our necessary survival processes. So much of what we do is far too removed from the simple act of staying alive. That’s why our lives seem so empty.

But why focus on that? Do I intend to return to a primal way of life? No. But is that the only other option? Are we to either embrace modernity and progress or kiss society goodbye and disappear into the wild? Are there no other options? There must be. This world we’ve created is a giant illusion. Our world is not inevitable. It didn’t have to happen this way. Our world could’ve been different, but we made some decisions, and this is the outcome. So now what do we do with it? It’s 2004. We’re in the United States of America, allegedly the most powerful nation in all of human history. Why do we continue to lead empty, easy lives? Why aren’t we trying to improve ourselves as an intelligent species? Do we mark our advances by how far our spaces probes can go, by how accurate our missiles are, by how fast a car can go from 0-60, by how good a cup of coffee can be, by how many shoes we can produce? Is this how we mark the progress of humanity? I look down upon our teeming world, and I see these busy creatures tearing shit down and putting shit up and burning shit and trying to clean up our messes but doing it too slow no matter how hard we try. I look down upon our teeming world, and I see a whole bunch of people busy doing a whole bunch of nothing. How can I claim to know what we should be doing with our time? Because I am an adult human being in the year 2004 in the middle of the United States of America, the richest, most powerful nation this world has ever seen. Why not me?

So how would I like things to be? No money. No war. No more ruining shit we can’t fix. Our every spark of energy should be bent towards making the world a better place for everybody. Unfortunately, profit and power-mongering are the primary movers in this world, which we created for ourselves. Whatever happened to enlightened living? Whatever happened to freeing ourselves of work? Isn’t work the first curse cast upon us by that crazed being we call God? Why are we afraid to try to reverse that age old curse? Because we think it’d make God mad? Because we think we have to wait for some mythical savior to come do it for us? What are we waiting for? The Kingdom of Peace is at hand, but we can’t see it. Love could be ours if we’d but grasp it. But we can’t. We’ve purposely occluded ourselves. We’ve chosen to make the world as it is, and we’re deathly afraid of change. All of us, on some level, understand that things aren’t as they ought to be. There’s too much bullshit on this planet, and we just take it like a bunch of sorry-ass bitches. What’s wrong with us?

Most of us can agree that money is a necessary evil. But what does that mean? Necessary evil? What’s up with that? That phrase should be struck from the books. It makes no sense. It means defeat. Necessary evil? That’s a phrase of a hopeless people. Necessary evil? Sounds like the words of a people resigned to despair. This shit isn’t necessary at all. It’s only here because we allow it, because we think it’s inevitable. Where did we get this idea that everything has to be fucked up?

From our parents. From our teachers. From our elected leaders. From our televisions. From our newspapers. From our preachers. Everybody tells us that when you grow up you realize that life is inherently unfair. They tell you that when you grow up you have to do certain things whether you like them or not. They tell you that when you grow up you have to obey, or they’ll throw you in jail or make you pay. They tell you that you’re lucky to be a kid because you have no responsibilities. Didn’t Jesus say we had to make ourselves like children in order to make it into Heaven? Why then do we try so hard to get as far as we can from that ideal state? Why the fuck did Paul tell us to put away our childish ways? Obviously that guy wasn’t paying attention. Obviously that guy missed the message of the guy he supposedly followed.

But we can’t blame just the Christians for the world as it is. Or the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists, the Hindus. It’s everybody’s fault.

So are we just an evil fuckin’ species? Are we lazy? Are we disinterested in spreading joy? Are we masochists? Have our leaders failed us? Or have we just given up?

I think it’s the last one.

We’re a species of quitters. In popular fiction we like to pretend that one of the traits that makes our species so great is our unending drive to survive. Oh yeah, that’s fuckin’ fantastic right there. Ants are survivors. Coyotes are survivors. Sharks are survivors. Dandelions are survivors. Oh yeah, we humans are the shit because we never want to give up the ghost. The technologically advanced aliens come to kill us but are thwarted because humans never give up.

Every day, every single one of us gives up.

You go to work and you feed your kids and you pay your bills and you tell yourself that that’s what life’s all about. You drink some beer, you crack some jokes, you have some sex, and you tell yourself that that’s what life’s all about. You make mad loot, you buy expensive shit, you go on amazing vacations, and you tell yourself that that’s what life’s all about. You sit by the ocean and sip cool drinks, and you tell yourself, “This is what life’s all about.”

But what did you have to give up in order to reach that halcyon stage? You gave up being able to just hang out and drink yummy drinks. You quit playing and worked all those years so you could do what you did when you were a kid. You did all that shit because everybody said you had to. You did all that shit because you bought into the system you helped create which demands that you jump through hoops in order to not just survive (which you claim is the supreme trait of mankind) but to be able to do the things you did when you were a kid, and do them in style with a really nice watch and a sweet ride. Good for you.

Money’s a necessary evil and so is war, right? People are always going to fight. Might as well get yours before the whole shithouse goes up in flames. It’s somebody else’s responsibility to work things out for everybody else. You got your shit figured out. If you can do it, so can everybody else. You worked hard to get where you are. If they all just worked hard, too, they’d get all sorts of material glory just like you. Fuck them, right? You gave at church. Why are they coming begging to you? You gave blood last week. You’ve done your duty. You work real hard. You fuckin’ bust your ass every day so that you can enjoy the fruits of your labors. You know you have to fuckin’ bust your ass like that because the ancient myths have convinced you that there can be no other way.

You live your life out of fear. That’s what this world’s all about. That’s why we built all this shit. Because we’re afraid. They say we created civilization as a means by which we could make our lives easier and safer. That’s the biggest delusion of all human history. I’m not advocating a return to the wild. I’m advocating an acknowledgment of our modern world being the result of fear and subjugation. Whose lives truly improved when their paths were paved and their homes pinned to foundations and their water pumped through pipes? Whose lives improved other than the few in power? Everyone else was enslaved and thrown scraps to delude them into thinking they were working by choice. But we all know they worked out of fear. Contribute to the holy advance of society or be ground up for jackal food. Give in now or be sucked in later. Phagocytosis, right? Contribute to the grand experiment or forage from food and hide from predators. After a hundred thousand years of supposedly busting our asses just to survive, we decided to pool together and work together to make our lives easier. Then we realized that easy lives are unfulfilling. We didn’t know what to do with our time. Supposedly we’d use it to advance our species, but instead the drive for improvement was hijacked and rerouted to expand the power and wealth of the few.

Are you OK with that? Are you happy to contribute to the madness so long as you get your scraps? Are you OK with your scraps because a lot of people don’t even get that? Are you OK with your scraps because you worked hard to get them? Is it cool with you that you’ve consented to tearing the fuck out of the earth and allowing millions of people to be slaughtered in petty conflicts born of greed? Is that cool with you? Because it’s not cool with me. And every day that I get up and participate in this so-called great experiment, I remember that my participation is a sign of my tacit approval of doing things half-assed in ways that result in the destruction of beautiful places and beautiful people. What eats at me every day is that I participate, knowing full well that I’m contributing to the madness and knowing full well that I’m consciously contributing to the madness because I can’t figure out what else to do. My participation in this bullshit is the result of a sort of giving up.

But I tell you this, I haven’t given up completely. I just don’t know what else to do.

 

wow, you wrote so m,any words I dont know how to help you. I didnt read it all. sorry.

 

For Christ's sake people. Treat this forum like a children's book: short and sweet with a lot of illustrations, please!

 

Maybe it's not a troll. Maybe it's literary diarrhea.

 

nah, just long. I am sure it is very important to you.

 

I can tell you this, like any good shit, it felt great to get out.

 

yay, are ya walking funny now?

 

I'm walkin' on sunshine!