Absurd.  Mislead.  Obtuse.  All words that exist on the periphery of our descriptions of the people we commune with in the modern world.  We look at our fellow journey-mates through this thing we call life as average representations of what it means to be human.  But all you have to do is remove the shroud from your eyes, and the world appears different.

Undertaking this experience is ridiculed by our society.  As David Icke puts it, “we govern ourselves… they don’t need to govern us, we govern ourselves on what is “normal” and what is not”.  When you consider the well being of the Earth a more important endeavor than the “war on terror”, you are immediately categorized.  People look at this world from the same adolescent perspective that started their smoking habit in high school… peer pressure.

Judging ourselves and our way of life is a seriously difficult proposition.  Getting a person to judge themselves has been a failure of humanity since the infancy of civilization.  So religion stepped in and commanded center stage with guilt, and sin.  But even then, certain ideals escaped the strong arm of God and damnation of your soul to hell forever.  I mean, “Though shall not kill” was pretty clear.  But “Though shall respect Thy home, Thy planet, and Thy co-habitants of it” was a little too complicated… let’s leave that one out and stay on task… besides, doesn’t 10 Commandments seem more even, more balanced, more marketable?

So we live and evolve even faster into a strange perturbation of evolution making a bad mistake.  (Evolution speaking… “Geez, I thought creating a complex being like a human would give the world the eyes and ears it needed to be appreciated with?  I mean a creature that cherishes art, appreciates music, and can engineer tools?  That has got to have SOME benefit for the world?”)  Unfortunately for Nature though, evolution dealt it a raw hand.

Homo Sapien Sapien has evolved into a self serving creature, taking from this world whatever it seems fit.  No consideration for the disruption of balance in the equation… WE are the privileged ones here.  Other beings, and non-beings do not matter.  Not only will we take beings that are alive today and turn them into food, clothing, entertainment, and laboratories; we are entitled to their remains so that we can drive our SUVs to our McMansions. (In case you are curious about that last sentence, oil comes from the decomposed organic remains of lifeforms millions of years ago).

I recently stumbled across an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal.  This was sent to me by a colleague warning of the impending financial future of the United States. The article is linked HERE and is titled “As Times Turn Tough, 
New York’s Wealthy Economize: Plastic Surgeons, Jewelers, Yacht Builders Brace for Leaner Times; Saying No to Caviar”.  It discusses the tough financial situation that we are experiencing having an effect on a “regular” well off American family the Ashers.  A rhinoplasty (a nose job) was “something of a rite of passage for Joan Asher’s children”, and it continues on “But when her fourth and last child was ready for her own rhinoplasty recently, Ms. Asher asked her to postpone it.  The financial markets were simply more out of whack than her 16-year-old’s proboscis.  “The other noses were more prominent,” the stay-at-home mother from a tiny New York City suburb in Westchester County told her 16-year-old daughter, she could get hers done when things settled down.”

Again, so what right?  Read between the lines folks.  A major newspaper is writing about the effects of the financial strain on families who were buying nose jobs for their 16 year old children, without one mention of how absurd the idea of buying a 16 year old a nose job even is!  We have become so weak in dealing with realities that we see it okay to allow this to bleed into our children’s worlds.  If you have a body image problem when you are 16, go ahead and fix it honey… don’t grow and work around the issues… just fix the nose and look like everyone else.  Give in to the peer pressure.

But my essay is not just about that… I want you to see that the Wall Street Journal makes no mention of this.  It is never mentioned in the light that maybe we are screwed up, and the financial crisis is but one facet of some of the results of this obtuse life we lead.  Think about it?  Why is it that we need to even point out the relevancy of the financial crisis by using an abnormal behavior as one of the victims as well?  Is it not good enough to point out that people are losing their homes, or that inflation, unemployment, poor education systems, and taxpayers financing a never ending war are crippling our society?

The story sends the subtle message that wealthy people are able to pay for their 16 year old kids to look normal, or perfect.  So if you’re wealthy, or want to live like you’re wealthy, you might simulate that behavior to be part of that herd.  If you need an example of this, remember a show about a successful, single mid-thirties editor and her 3 other single female friends living in New York City circa 1998?  The main character mentions a love for her shoes, and boom…the Manolo Blahnik craze begins.  We are SO herd mentality, that in denial, we create versions of individualism, then package and sell these to each other and a herd is created of “unique individuals” who dress the same, listen to the same music, live by the same ideals.

The mainstream media is untrustworthy because they have failed to provide you with introspective writing that opens and discusses the deeper issues that operate behind the scenes.  It has dumbed us down and provided us with only the fluff on top.  No more complex essays that dissect the issue into the history behind it and what the past and present mean together.  All you need to do is read the Wall Street Journal Article (HERE) and then read another article written in Le Monde Diplomatique (HERE), a french newspaper well known for its objective reporting.

You may have suffered from the very disease that I am going to point out now.  The fact that you clicked on the links to the articles, but scanned the first few paragraphs and noticed the length and complexity of the articles, but decided you’re time is spent better elsewhere, “heck it’s summarized it for me here, so why should I read the original?”  (I know, believe me, I used to suffer from that disease too…)  Or maybe you didn’t even click on the links?

The point is that (maybe) you didn’t get into the complexities of the situations.  A summary will do.  Give me the info in a sound bite, and let’s me move on to the next topic.  I know this because as many emails I have from you all complimenting the site, just as many emails have jumped into my inbox telling me that “the articles are excellent and really make you think… but could you make them shorter?”  Or I really like this one… I see one of you, and you say “Hey I read your recent article… excellent point!”, I ask, “Really?  Thank you… did you like the part about the how justify using oil to fight war?, and I get this answer: “Oh… no, I only had time to read the beginning of that one… but I was going to read it later…”

So we live in a society that has tipped past the point of no return, where even discussion about absurdity and obtuse ideology is no longer entertained.  Let’s focus our attention on what to buy next?  What’s “in” for Spring at the house of Chanel, or I wonder what new material Louis Vuitton will use for the new line in the Fall… they made purses out of jeans, vinyl, and dead Cow… what’s next? (oooh, how exciting!)

And our media celebrates this… like that friend that holds the crack pipe for you on your first time.  I’ve always been an optimistic person, and believe in the imagination and spirit in Homo Sapien Sapien.  But every day that passes, I realize that this disease that we suffer from, is not only terminal, but highly contagious.  It spreads like an epidemic and spares no one it infects.  Once inserted into your psyche, the “virus” operates via the reptilian mind to steer our choices based on fear.  Fear of rejection, fear of being hurt in a car accident, or fear of looking like a failure.  So we change our faces, we buy bigger cars, and we live in bigger fancier homes.

Please show me that I am wrong.  Please prove to me that I am completely wrong about this whole process unfolding in front of all of our eyes.  Start by reading the Le Monde article (HERE).  Not because of what it is written about, but how it is written.  Stay the course.  See if you can get your wrap your brain around this article, not just read it, but feel the ideas, place yourself in the reader’s mind and truly comprehend the intent.

If you’ve done this already (because I would never insinuate that you all haven’t read it), begin to speak like this.  Talk to people about these relevant ideas.  Begin the process of opening other people’s eyes.  The vaccine for this disease is spread only by awareness and dialog.  I know I ask this of you often, but I need you all to prove me wrong.  Because if I am right, you and I are doomed.

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