YOU CAN’T GO YOUR OWN WAY

In case you haven’t been paying attention, here’s a lesson we’re learning from this pandemic. 

YOU CAN’T FUCKING MAKE UP YOUR OWN RANDOM REALITY

Here’s the thing, there’s a lot of people running around with crackpot ideas of how the world works and what they’ve got a right to do in it and the simple fact of the matter is THEY’RE FUCKING WRONG!  Not only that, but they demand that everyone else accept their stupid beliefs, no matter how hair-brained they may be, and treat them as “gospel” and indulge their every whim.  This is the nature of the “post truth” world we’ve created where YOUR reality is just as valid as MY reality, no matter how completely divorced from REAL reality it might happen to be. 

This is why we have a US president who does nothing but lie and cheat and deceive, but still maintains a support base which is adamantly and unquestioningly dedicated to his delusions and every disgusting deception he perpetrates.  We’re all supposed to accept and tolerate these brainwashed morons while they lead the world into a sewer race to the bottom of the extinction barrel.  They’ve abandoned any sense of reason or rationality and, instead, proudly embraced deliberate ignorance as a virtue, proclaiming their “beliefs” as proof of righteousness.

Everything about how this pandemic has manifested and spread throughout the globe is a testament to the tolerance of irrationality within the public sphere.  The American founding fathers insisted on the separation of Church and State for a very good reason.  They realized that subjective belief systems were poison to the successful management of any kind of society.  Coordinating the infrastructure of a modern, technological civilization cannot be accomplished on the basis of “thoughts and prayers”.  The systems we rely upon to maintain food supplies, utilities and economic viability MUST be managed solely on the basis of reasoned, practically planned actions which are vetted to ensure they do not cause harm to the society they serve, nor the environment in which that society exists.  The collapsing of these systems is entirely the result of our indulgence of irrationality, pushing profit motives over communal standards of living. 

This crisis is going to demand we, as a civilization, either put some outmoded conceptions to bed, at long last, or stare down the barrel of extermination.  The planet is already making it clear to us how it is capable of putting us in our places when we don’t have our shit together.  Let’s just keep in mind that this modern civilization has less than a couple of centuries of existence to speak for itself.  That’s barely a “tick” of the cosmic clock, so assuming that what we’ve built is in any way “permanent”, is the height of hubris.  We can only play the fools game for so long before the bill comes due and we have to pay for our willful ignorance.

So let’s start with the BIG one - religion.  I’m particularly speaking of this belief that existence was created by some anthropomorphic being who takes a personal interest in each of us and the lives we lead.  This is the entity people pray to so that their sports team wins or they get that raise at work or mom orders pizza for dinner instead of making steamed broccoli.  It’s also the one with whom some claim to have “personal” conversations and who receive “messages” they’re supposed to relay to the rest of us in order to dictate what we’re allowed to do.  Yeah well, that’s all bullshit.  It doesn’t exist.   And I’m done indulging idiots who insist in believing this garbage and then try to shove that down my throat as a consideration for how the world should be organized.  I’m done letting these simpletons tell me that their “God” doesn’t like how I fuck, or doesn’t want me to read some book, or that Jesus is gonna “take the wheel” and keep us all safe from the bad things in the world. These people are a menace to everyone else on this planet and it’s time people who hold to reason and science and empathy and thoughtfulness stop making excuses for these ethically vacant losers and pulled the plugs on all their power bases.  For one thing, tax their goddamned churches out of existence.  They’re tax exempt because the churches know they’d be bankrupt the instant they had to function like any other business in the community.  And if you think that “God” is going to guide you, then you DON’T get to make decisions for ANYONE ELSE.  You don’t get to make laws or determine ANYTHING about the way civilization runs because you are INCOMPETENT.  You’ve abandoned reason and facts and have no business doing anything but huddling in your church and giving thanks to those who are smart enough and competent enough to do the real work that makes living possible. 

And let’s please all just agree to AGREE!  We have to establish certain fundamental guiding principals in order to ensure we are not subject to the kind of conflicts which have crippled our governments in recent years.  This political stalemate between parties has got to come to an end.  Entrenching factions into intractable extremes has left us hobbled within our political mechanism.  We’re unable to move forward on anything because every action by one party is immediately seen as a cause for resistance by the other.  We can’t manage emergencies like this.  This pandemic has swept over the globe because we’re incapable of coming to any kind of agreement on anything to prevent it.  We have to find some kind of basis for coherency within these processes and the most important thing we can do towards that end is to ELIMINATE the use of spiritual and religious rhetoric in these decisions.  Ideology should not be a factor in political processes.  The only thing that should count is a reasoned analysis of the situation where logic and rationality, using the most up-to-date data and knowledge are employed.  Party systems which enforce particular belief systems onto the democratic process result in nothing more than a broken system.  All candidates should be independents and judged solely on the basis of their policies and whether they stand the scrutiny of logical critical analysis. 

The idea of “leadership” also needs to be completely overhauled and, essentially, abandoned.  The concept that ONE individual is seeded with ultimate authority is completely preposterous in a modern society and is no more than a hangover from the monotheistic religious view of power structures.  That structure wants to create a living “God” on Earth to rule over us.  Some would argue that the US aren’t doing that with the office of president because it is open to “anyone”.  Well, that’s another thing that needs to be rethought.  The disaster that is Trump is a clear example of the dangers of letting “anyone” into that seat of power.  It should be like any job and have qualifications and a job description and only those who meet the qualifications are considered as candidates for the role.  The fact this has never been established is a fatal flaw in the system.  Governance should not rest on the shoulders of any individual and those who are responsible should be vetted by qualified peers who understand the complexities of the positions being filled and only approve those who clearly meet those requirements.  Sure, you can still grow up to be a member of a senior oversight council, but only after you’ve invested a significant portion of study and practical application towards achieving the role. 

Participating in the governance of a society should require people to be informed and educated in the first place.  Those who are ignorant of processes should not be given influence over them.  But this must not be turned into an elitist system.  The key here is to ensure access to information and education is egalitarian and open to all.  But you don’t get to have a say if you choose to opt out of the process and just sit on your ass eating donuts and drinking beer.  If you want that kind of lifestyle, you’re welcome to it, but don’t expect to have a say in what happens in the world around you.  If your choice is to be ignorant, you don’t get to drag the world around you down into the garbage pit. 

Letting faith and fantasy have equal footing with rationality has opened the gate for disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic.  Thinking that we can all live in our own reality bubble, making up our own rules and not having to deal with any consequences, has left our civilization frail and vulnerable to the forces of nature, forces which we have turned a blind eye to in the past century.  Just because we each experience our own idiosyncratic relationship with existence does not mean that existence itself is subject to our whims.  We may be able to change some aspects of it, but most others are well outside our control.  In this sense, the “Serenity Prayer” is actually a very apt example of how to orient oneself to reality.  It’s about understanding the difference between things that can be changed and things that must be accepted as they are.  It asks the individual to cultivate the wisdom to know the difference and act accordingly, summoning the courage to make the right changes, when possible, and embracing acceptance for things which cannot be changed, and instead finding ways to adapt ourselves. 

The bottom line here, however, is that we can no longer afford to indulge ignorance and proud stupidity as having equal footing with rational, reasonable comprehension.  We are going to disagree with these people and we don’t have to be nice about it because those who are demanding we placate their “Gods” aren’t being nice to us.

TEN YEARS AFTER - ANOTHER DECADE IN THE CAN

As we come to the close of another decade, I've been doing a lot of thinking about how we use this particular factor of time to define out social evolution.  The decade is often used as a platform for nostalgia and reminiscing.  Depending on your age, you might look back on a particular decade as a "golden age" or base your generational identity on the events and products of that time.  We think of fashion and music and movies within a classification system which relies on this arbitrary 10 year span to create a sense of progression.  Our identities as individuals and groups conform to these cycles and stamp us with signifiers which link us to the times of our youth, adulthood and old age. Overall, the use of this segmentation helps to give us a sense of forward momentum, the feeling like we are traveling along a continuum and heading towards some kind of accomplishment. 

It seems to me that Western civilization began delimiting decades as cultural and generational eras beginning with the 20th century, or perhaps just before it.  I suspect it is closely tied to the industrial revolution and remains linked to technological advancements to this day.  Prior to that, things didn't change much except in terms of centuries where you might get an enlightened period or a dark age or ongoing wars between nations and ethnic groups, but for the most part, the way people lived didn't change too dramatically until machines and electricity came into the picture.  Then you get an exponentially accelerating process of social upheaval as successive new technologies emerge.  Within that, the decade became a convenient marker by which to retrospectively assess and assimilate the primary social shifts which occurred in the past.  

From what I've observed, the means and methods of consuming media have been of particular importance in defining these shifts.  Perhaps the advent of written texts and then the printing press would be the first major propellants of cultural evolution.  Then we have the telephone, radio, recorded media (photography, film, audio and video tapes and discs), Television, computers, the internet and, finally, wireless broadband among the key communication revolutions.  The advent of each of these and the process of them becoming ubiquitous within our civilization has carried with it a unique set of social adaptations which changed the way we relate to one another.  Ideas could be shared with increasing speed, spreading the assimilation of new concepts and changing the way we perceive and comprehend reality.  The very act of recording is, in effect, a sort of "time machine",  allowing us to venture into the past and project ourselves into the future. 

Economic circumstances were also a key factor, particularly in the first half of the 20th century with the "roaring twenties" defining an era of abundance and economic boom, while the "dirty thirties" was a decade of financial ruin with the social upheaval which resulted ultimately culminating in a decade marked by a world war and the prospect of literal planetary extermination coming within the grasp of our species for the first time.  But in spite of the looming specter of nuclear annihilation, the 1950s dawned as a decade of prosperity and plenty.  Post war, birth rates soured, income increased and the new technologies were making themselves known as the cultural concepts of modernism & futurism became embedded into the psyche of the mainstream.   Technological advancements could be experienced directly as new machines and appliances entered the homes of large numbers of people in a mostly egalitarian way. 

Popular culture became critical as a social glue in the mid-century decades.  TV brought entertainment into every home and youth culture became an economic factor as manufacturers and  service industries realized that teens and preteens had access to wealth and resources never before available to so many.  The "middle class" came into its own in the West.  Things like rock and roll music could motivate millions of young people to purchase all sorts of products from clothes to cars to cans of Coke.  The sales pitch became an art form and began to develop a sophistication capable of manipulating susceptible minds.  Propaganda was turned towards selling goods instead of pushing ideology.  Capitalism became the ideology and its success was measured in profit margins.  

The 1960s ushered in the "space age" as the move to put people among the stars took hold and drove the science of the day, but other sorts of travel were also in the cards thanks to the advent of psychedelic drugs, a technology which came into prominence at the beginning of the decade as  clandestine experiments by the military and government leaked into the streets.  Thanks to the subversive efforts of certain intellectuals in the universities, these substances became widely available to the youth of the day, with the result being a realization that they had a voice and could take to the streets to demand change, as opposed to being no more than pawns in the capitalistic cat and mouse games of product peddling.  

This was all expertly crushed down in the 1970s when the youth were diverted away from activism as the "me decade" offered up self-indulgent fashion trends like disco and punk to provide a sense of self expression while simultaneously feeding the cash registers of the corporations creating all the clothes and music being consumed.  But this only worked to a certain extent as some valuable lessons were learned in the previous decade and actual social change did manage to start to creep into the cultural fabric.  Race relations, gender politics and sexual orientation all found their feet during this decade and began the process of fighting for rights and recognition which had been denied up to this point.  The world also began to recognize the environmental toll being exacted on the planet as pollution, in its various forms, started to show that it wasn't just nuclear destruction which offered an existential threat to humanity.  Our day to day abuses of our natural resources  could also upset the balance enough to trigger potentially catastrophic consequences.  

The 1980s saw the advent of the "computer world" as the first personal computers began to enter the home, though it wouldn't be until the next decade that these would truly make their mark.  However, culturally, the electronics boom drove society into it's first dalliances with cell phones and satellite TV opened up the possibilities of specialized programming and niche markets.  Above all, the capitalist money machine kicked into high gear as "greed is good" became the mantra of the mainstream.  Wealth and decadence were the hallmarks of this neon day-glo, big hair, broad shouldered decade.  It seemed as though money was all you needed to buy your happiness and your social standing.  

This culture of prosperity and technology carried over into the 1990s as the personal computer truly found its home on the desktops of middle class homes throughout the west.  Digital became the watchword as CDs and DVDs brought crystal clear, pixel perfect reproductions of content to consumers.  The skeleton of the internet established itself during this time and the potential of unlimited connectivity loomed.  Cell phones transformed from awkward bricks into something that more closely resembled the fantasy sci-fi communicators of Star Trek, small and palm sized, easy to pocket, making communication possible virtually anywhere at any time.  

The new millennium dawned amid paranoia about "Y2K" disasters as people began to realized how much they'd become dependent on technology and its computing power.  The prospect of a simple miscalculation sending global infrastructures and economies into chaos drove crisis culture into realms of conspiracies.  The build-out of the World Wide Web broke business models for media distribution and monetization as file sharing and rampant pirating of content meant that the container was no longer king in the world of data distribution.  Ones and zeros could be transmitted effortlessly from any one location to another, so artifacts like CDs and their physical counterparts became irrelevant and lost their value.  

Cable TV exploded in the 2000s and brought with it a host of product, both good and bad.  Sophisticated dramas on HBO were balanced against trashy reality TV on other specialty channels.  Being famous became an end in itself as Warhol's "15 minutes" prediction turned into nightmarish reality.  Economically, the house of cards was collapsing as born out by the 2008 crisis when banks and other financial institutions worked their way into disaster through speculation, unsustainable lending and sheer fraud on a scale never before imagined.  Politically, the uncoupling of reality from expediency set the stage for a kind of delusional governance which would fully bare fruit in the decade to come.  

This brings us to the 2010s as we close out this most recent decade and look forward to the 2020s.  Looking forward is something I say with a bit of hesitancy as we sit now on the precipice of some  disturbing realities.  With hindsight being what it is, looking back on this last decade reveals some rather unsettling chickens coming home to roost.  That sense of perpetual progression seems to be hitting the brakes now as the true cost of our follies begins to be calculated and the sums start hitting into zones of danger which had originally been projected for times much further into the future than our present.  

I think if there's anything that defines the past ten years, it has to be the proliferation of social media  in our culture.  Though the technology to support it first came into being in 2007, the effect of it has truly been felt since the beginning of this decade as platforms like Facebook and Twitter have taken root and created this environment where facts have become optional.  People are now free to create their own reality based on any old bias or prejudice they wish to indulge.  Things are true because people want them to be true.  "Fake" is a meaningless term now because everything is fake.  One media source is just as good as another.  It's only a matter of personal preference.  

Environmentally, the alarm bells have been going off throughout the decade as severe weather anomalies and climate change become more and more difficult to dismiss.  People looking back on this decade, if there are any to do so in the future, may likely pinpoint it as the tipping point for climate collapse and irreversible damage to our ability to sustain life.  There is every chance we have already gone too far in terms of damaging ecological systems for us to effect repairs or stop the rest of the dominoes from falling.  

Politically, we're living through something that would have only been imagined in a Batman movie plot in previous decades.  Now, blatant criminals have stolen control of governments away from the electorate and prop themselves up with deluded masses of ignorant lackeys who follow because they've been bred to see selfishness and cruelty as virtues to be celebrated.  People protected by their social media bubbles of self deceit rally around a buffoon like Trump and cheer as he spits insults and abuse, thinking this is a display of authority when, in fact, it's nothing more than a perversion of power.  There is no level of debasement he is capable of which would dissuade them from their support.

Socially, this decade has seen the complete abandonment of the concept of a "middle class" as a small percentage of the mega-wealthy horde resources beyond any practical need and deny basic sustenance to the rest of the planet by preventing wages from growing with productivity and lobbying to repeal fundamental social gains made by unionization and labor movements in previous decades.  They've convinced themselves that their money will buy them protection from the social collapse they're actively engaged in promoting as they undermine every social institution which used to help advance civilization.  Profit motives have corrupted the courts, healthcare, education, policing, the military and spirituality.  There isn't a single sanctuary remaining where the obsession with profit at any costs hasn't desecrated the concept of empathy, community and caring.  We're all merely swirling around the toilet for the final flush, grasping at any piece of shit we can get our hands on before we get sucked down the drain, once and for all.

Where generations have previously followed the procession of advancement, always with a sense of optimism of working towards a better future, we are now at a precipice where more and more people are convinced there's no turning back and that there's no hope for salvation.  We can't pretend anymore that these are just tough times, struggles we've gone through before and that we'll work our way through.  That delusion has lost its usefulness as a salve to ease the pain of the wounds that keep being inflicted upon us.  We're worn raw from the abuse and know there's no plan to relent or show mercy.  The master is on the whip and any pretense at accommodation has been abandoned as an economic burden, too costly to justify.   This last decade has sucked the wind from our sails, particularly the latter half of it.  When blatant criminals can hold power in what is called "the land of the free", then the world has gone mad, even if that nation has always been something of a fraud in terms of being a proponent of "truth and justice". 

My own personal journey through this decade as been one of disconnection and loss, right from its onset.  Where the 1990s & 2000s saw me find footing in the technology sector, establishing a 16 year long successful career in software development, I started off 2010 by being unceremoniously ejected from that position and have not been able to secure any stable employment since.  As I come up to my 10th anniversary of unemployment, I find myself in a kind of netherworld limbo, the "50 plus dead zone", where I'm too old to be considered for any regular employment (50 being the arbitrary cutoff currently in vogue), but not old enough to retire and collect a pension.  In fact, the same people who won't hire people over 50 are also now pushing for holding off retirement until after 70, though they don't seem to see any issue with that 20 year purgatory they're creating in the process.  Though I subsist in a state of disenfranchisement from the main economic engine, I'm still somehow allowed to exist in this position where I have a roof over my head and food on my table, ostensibly because I must still serve some meager economic purpose.  The frightening thing is that I'm actually one of the lucky ones.  By some anomaly of mathematics, I'm still considered in the upper percentile of affluence on this planet.  Go figure.  

Now, we're on the threshold of the 2020's.  It's a nice looking number, to be sure, but what of the humans which will be defining this coming decade?  Are they going to double down on disaster or turnabout into a rebound?  Personally, my money's on the former as all signs point to a continuation of the madness which has stamped this past decade with its obscenities and inexcusable delusions.  I suspect humanity needs a lesson in humility and survival before the idiots start to consider that you can't defy nature and reality indefinitely.  Eventually the check is gonna come due and we're going to have to pay up for our hubris and wanton disregard for the limitations of our existence.   The big question is going to be whether it's too late to right the wrongs and chance course.  If there are historians to look back on what we did this past decade, let's hope we at least serve as an object lesson in mismanagement rather than an epitaph for the planet. 

GAME OVER

Life is a game, often a "team" sport, where you arbitrarily get born into one social group or another and spend the duration of your existence in a competition for resources and rewards.  At this point in my experience of this engagement, I'm pretty much ready for the coach to come in and tap me on the shoulder and say it's time for me to hit the showers.  In this case, the "coach" is wearing a long black robe and carrying a scythe.  To carry the analogy a bit further, I've been benched for a while now and will likely never be called in to play again.  I'm worn out, injured and unable to perform at the level necessary to compete with the younger, more talented players on the team.  Going out on the field is pointless as no one is going to pass me the ball and I simply don't have the drive and energy to fight my way into the fray to get my hands on it.

The point here is that, while I have no immediate plans to quit the team just yet, I would not be resistant to being retired.  I know where I'm at in this scenario.  I know that there just isn't any more for me to contribute and, frankly, the game is looking like a washout for all the teams involved anyway.  The truth about this tournament called humanity is that no one's going to end up winning anything.  Sadly, we've all spent the last few eons evolving into this magnificent creature only to slit our own throats just as we're about to hit the goal line.  

It all comes down to motivation and there simply isn't any left when you know what's coming and know there's no avoiding it.  Whether or not I even have the ability to contribute to this world anymore is irrelevant since there's just no point in even making the effort.  There's nothing I could create or communicate or instigate that would have the power to deflect the juggernaut of self-destruction humanity has unleashed upon itself.  The inertia of ignorance and stupidity that is dragging us down into the abyss of annihilation is too massive to counter with any degree of intellect or activism.  The willingness necessary to assail the halls of power and control in order to right this course does not exist within our species.  The heads of state and industry must roll.  There is no avoiding this truth.  They must all be pulled down by force and smashed into dust.  But humanity is too distracted and set upon false rivalries between races and creeds to recognize the real enemy and turn on them.

But it is or no consequence since the time for that drastic action has already past.  Pundits who talk about how we have X years to make changes before the effects are too late are all overly optimistic.  As the stats of what's really happening keep rolling in, the shocking results are that the degradation and imbalances within our ecosystem are far more advanced than anyone had predicted.  It's already too late to fix anything.  We should have been on this in the last century, but we're still debating whether it's even real or not.  We're still giving voice and credence to cretins, liars and criminals as if their thoughts are worth consideration.  They aren't.  They should have been shut down and muzzled long ago so that the work of people who understand the physics of the world could get on with the business of not shoving the planet down the toilet.  

I wish I was wrong about this.  I would be so gloriously joyous to discover the flaws in my assessment and predictions.  I would also be just as happy to be wrong about religion and faith and to discover there is a just creator and the evil in this world will come to a reckoning.  But the only reckoning to come is the failure of our species to survive and, while there may be some rough justice in that, it's a shame to see all the goodness be taken down with the bad.  We are capable of goodness and creativity and inspiration, but the math simply doesn't work out.  Though individuals have made great strides in advancing us from the muck of our ancestors, the tidal wave of ignorance, greed and fear has ultimately won the game in favor of nihilism. 

This, I will be told, is "wrong thinking".  I should be "positive" and "optimistic".  I shouldn't give up or admit defeat.  The system has placed all sorts of triggers and reminders into our experience that tell us that it's the worst thing of all to admit to failure.  I know there will be people who read this and think that I should "hope" for a better future and have "faith" that the good will ultimately prevail.  But I've spent too much of my life living in that bubble of false optimism and found that it has only been another distraction and kept me away from the outrage and anger that I should have had and maybe could have used when I was younger and more able to take action.  If we all felt the despair and  betrayal we should have instead of wrapping ourselves in the security blanket of "positive thinking", we might have taken to the streets and pulled these fuckers out of their seats of power before it was too late.

So I'm still here on the team, but I"m just gonna sit on the bench and watch the game until my little light flickers out.  I won't cheer for anyone anymore, however.  There's no "rah-rah" left in me at this stage.  But there is still a comedy of errors to observe and it makes for some dramatic viewing. 

BELIEF IS FOR THE BIRDS - BIRD BOX ANALYSIS

A while back, I watched the Netflix film, Bird Box, and wrote out a few thoughts.  This is less a review and more an analysis of the themes and symbolism used in the film.

There was a lot of chatter about this movie when it was released and I can see why.  It's one of those films which is just vague enough to illicit speculation and varying interpretation while giving enough specifics to ground it in experiences that anyone can relate to.  Personally, there were some things about it that I found a bit frustrating as someone who generally likes to know what's going on and why. Also, the practical logistics of all this suggest some massive plot holes in terms of how anyone could survive this scenario at all.  However, when you're dealing with allegories, sometimes its best to put practical considerations aside and deal with what's being presented with a certain suspension of disbelief.

Allegory is certainly what this presents the viewer, but which allegory is where interpretation may vary as I can see a few possibilities cropping up.  I saw some comments before watching this which theorized it's about racism, so I went into it looking for those references, but honestly, I don't know if that's really very pertinent to this tale.  For me, the most obvious conclusion to draw from this story is that "ignorance is bliss", given that the main contention here is that what you don't see can't hurt you.  From there, I suppose the question is, what could one ignore to the point where it would be advantageous to one's survival?

In the film, "seeing is believing" takes on a new meaning as each individual goes through their own reaction, though these reactions tend to break down into two main variations. Either one becomes suicidal and self destructive or one becomes a "convert" to whatever this menace is and attempts to ensure everyone around them is exposed to it as well. The "converts" seem to be able to continue to function in the world in some sense while the others seek nothing beyond immediate and irreversible annihilation. What's left are those few who remain ignorant or unexposed as long as they don't see what's in front of them.

When I consider the symbolism, I can't help but see a connection to the current political climate, particularly in the US.  People who get wrapped up in the madness either feel hopeless and helpless or they become part of it and try to encourage it. Those who refuse to get absorbed by it seem few and far between, but maybe they're the ones who are best off. I don't know. This idea that being blind to something can protect you from it seems counter-intuitive to me.

Since watching it, the interpretations I've come across have focused on Mallory and how the story is about her connecting with people again after starting off as an isolated, detached character afraid to love or commit to relationships. I'm not so sure that's the real point of what's going on here either.  I don't know how the act of cutting off perception of the world around you is supposed to help bring people together.  I've always felt that the opposite of that was true.

I guess where that leaves me is confused as to the moral of the story given that we never find a way to exist in this world without being restricted in a very major way. Though the main character finds herself discovering her ability to care about others and create relationships, she's still trapped in a world where exposure to it leads to destructive and devastating consequences. It's a place where, ultimately, the people who are most adapted to it are those without the ability to perceive it. Truly a case of "the blind leading the blind".

After considering it for a day or two, however, I finally hit on something that made sense to me.  The key is looking at the basic metaphysics involved here and the question of whether what's happening is "natural" or "supernatural".  The answer to that, for me, is obviously the latter.  This is not some virus or man made contagion or invasion.  This is some kind of divine judgement.  This is what happens when humanity sees that there is no "God".  

Most people can't deal with it and, faced with an indifferent, uncaring universe, implode and self destruct.  Some, the "atheists", embrace it and want everyone to see what they see.  They go around trying to make everyone look at what they see.  The "monster", for them, is beautiful and they're shown as godless heathens.  The "believers" that remain spend the movie trying not to see the "truth".  They end up trying to survive in an isolated enclave run by "blind" people, those who are incapable of seeing the truth of a godless universe and continue to live in ignorance. They survive by ignoring the evidence of their senses and clinging to their belief.

This is what religion offers.  It's an excuse to keep your eyes closed and not see the vast indifference of the universe and how it swallows us up in its enormity.  Those who embrace this knowledge are characterized as fanatics and insane, when the reality is that the believers are really the ones who are locked away from understanding reality.  Ultimately, this film is an endorsement of ignorance as a means of security and safety.  It tells the viewer that seeing is a curse and that blindness is a blessing. 

A FAREWELL TO KINGS

As a fan of Game of Thrones, I've been noticing all the theorists positing their predictions on who will end up taking the "iron throne" as the series wraps up its final season.  As I consider these, it occurs to me that nothing would be more tedious and boring than if this whole show was about no more than who ends up in that seat.  Personally, I don't care if it's a Lannister or a Stark or a Targaryen.  If this has all been about no more than a play for power, then it's just another tired fairy-tale driven by the same old cliches as the rest of them.  But I think ol' R.R. Martin deserves more credit than that and I'm hoping he delivers a surprise twist in the end that no one is really expecting.  

What I'm hoping for is that he shows that the throne itself needs to be put into question and the idea of its power, and those who wield it, needs to be challenged.   I'm hoping that, by the end of this series, NO ONE is on the throne.  I'm hoping that the entire power structure it represents is destroyed.  The reason I'm looking for that kind of resolution is because fiction is meant to offer humanity an opportunity to address its foibles and there is no folly which is more urgently in need of addressing than the concept of hierarchical power structures.  

This concept, that we have one "leader" who then dispenses authority to (usually) his minions below,  has been at the root of human social structures since the beginning of civilization.  One might argue that, since it has lasted so long, perhaps it is because it is a reasonable, logical structure to use for organizing humanity and we should not be too eager to usurp it.  But I think, if humanity is going to have any hope at all of surviving for the "long haul", you know, like more than another century, we're gonna need some RADICAL new approaches to social order because what we're doing now is really NOT working.  

At the moment, the United States is offering a prime example of how bad this concept can get when you put the wrong person at the top.  Its entire governing structure has been co-opted and corrupted by an organized gang of criminals intent on using that system for their own personal gain with ZERO consideration for the welfare of those being governed nor the wider global system with which it interacts.  These people couldn't be more blatant about their nefarious intent if they were Batman villains running around with clown makeup and top hats.  It is this system of hierarchy which has allowed this kind of corruption to exist because it places leadership on a level above reproach and beyond being responsible for its actions.  The failure of the FBI's recent obstruction investigation to level any legal response against these con artists is only the most superficial symptom of the sickness which pervades every level of so-called "checks and balances" which were supposed to prevent this kind of abuse of power.  

Western democracies may not be run on the principle of the "divine right of kings", but what we see evidenced is no less a process of rule by elite where privilege and paternity are the primary deciding factors in determining who makes the decisions and where the power flows.  Even in Canada, we have a political dynasty with Trudeau while in the US, families like the Bush and Kennedy clans continue to hold influence.  Ultimately, however, it is the mighty dollar that is the primary factor in determining who gets to make the rules and who has to "pay the piper".  Capitalism is fundamentally a "top down" system whereby authority is based on financial resources and nothing more.  It merely measures accumulations of wealth and uses that as a basis upon which to align its hierarchy.  "Old" money may tend to have more sway as we see certain long standing families entrench themselves into the system, but "new" money can always find a foothold when it gets big enough.  

It's also not just a problem of having the wrong people at the top.  No amount of shuffling the deck will counteract the corrupting influence which unfettered authority imparts.  The old saw about "power corrupting" is well earned and copiously demonstrated by examples going back through the centuries.  There is no such thing, in practice, as a "benevolent" dictatorship and democracy doesn't really help in terms of putting better people at the helm.  The power structure is the same as a dictatorship or a monarchy.  It's always a "top down", pyramidal organization.  The only thing democracy did was replace succession via birthright or military might with a popularity contest whereby the lowest common denominator ends up in the seat, often dumbed down to the point of idiocy as we've seen with that powdered pinhead, Trump.  

If we're going to move away from this sort of power structure, the obvious question is, what's the alternative?  Here we are in dire need of an epiphany or a true paradigm shift.  I'm too entrenched in the old system to be able to fully conceive of a new one.  I've been raised in it and conditioned by it my entire life so that I can barely help but differ to it or manage to scrape enough conscience together to question it in these fading years of my senior life.  I've seen glimpses of an alternative in recent years in the decentralized organizational murmurings of the "Occupy" movement from earlier in this new millennium.  It flashed into view for a brief moment, like a spot fire in the forest, popping up here and there across the globe, but it seems to have been quickly stamped out by the "powers that be" since then.  I've seen very little progress or evidence of it lately.  But I do believe that something in some similar form is lurking on the horizon if we can manage to survive this century without turning our home into an uninhabitable wasteland.  

I think the ingredients are fundamentally basic.  Firstly, no single person should be put in a position of ultimate authority.  Though it has become a common cliche to think of committees as "places where ideas go to die", some form of communal decision making process is required.  Above all, it must be structured in a way that eliminates the special interests of privileged minorities from dictating outcomes and defining values and benefits.  Considerations need to be given in terms of individual exceptions and variants, but not at the expense of the greater welfare.  Secondly, the people within government should be appointed to these positions on the basis of merit and experience.  No appointment should be irrevocable and the process should be transparent, subject to auditing and amendable as greater understanding of any given role is gained.  Qualifications should be based in practical experience.  For example, oversight of medical institutions should be done by people who have worked in the field, either directly as practitioners or within the administrative branch.  This farce of incompetent buffoons currently holding government offices who have no knowledge of their particular area of specialization would be wiped out under a proper peer reviewing appointment system.  

The concept of democratic input into processes and systems also needs to be framed within the confines of a system whereby basic rights and freedoms are guaranteed and NOT subject to curtailment or elimination based on populist fads or frivolities.  A lot of this sort of thing has been attempted, to some extent, within existing western constitutions and charters, but much of it remains exposed and vulnerable to politicking by special interests and ideological extremists who seek to impose their beliefs within the system.  The fact that something as fundamental to human health as abortion continues to teeter on the brink of criminalization after decades of debate and practical example is a glaring failure within government to secure the rights of a major segment of the population, the half of it which happens to be of the female gender.  That such a massive portion of the population must exist with such uncertainty and fear is inexcusable for any civilized society.  That this hasn't caused the populace to erupt in riots in the streets is no less than a miracle.  

Of course, this is merely a scratch upon the surface of an issue too massive to be grappled with in such a minor bit of contemplation.  Changing out that cornerstone of human civilization is a task which, I suspect, shall only come about when it becomes a necessity.  Its consequences will be too painful for those who have sheltered their existence inside those old walls.  Those who have, until now, found safety within that dying paradigm will not surrender it without a struggle.  Indeed, it may take the utter collapse of what we call "civilization" to enable a clear field for the construction of a new edifice of social order.  Only when we have suffered that catastrophe shall the inevitability of change be thrust upon us.

INTRODUCTION - WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

At the ripe old age of (almost) 56, I'm spending what feels like my remaining years doing little more than waiting to die.  I don't feel driven by any desire to accomplish anything, I have no goals, I have no sense of a future to plan for.  All I have is a sense of finality, that I've reached a point where I simply have nothing left to contribute and no one left who would care if I did.  I shouldn't say "no one".  There is a handful of people who would lament my passing, should it occur any time soon, but that's not the point.  The point is that, for most of my life, I felt like I was at least "in the game" and there was some possibility of accomplishing something.  In the past few years however, that feeling has slipped away into a dim memory.

What I see in the world around me is a civilization hurtling towards disaster; economic, social, political and environmental.  I don't see any indication that humanity is evolving towards anything better than what we've had in the past.  What I see is a general intellectual  decline into a culture of ignorance and stupidity.  The knuckle-dragging thugs are winning.  The criminals have the edge.  Nothing I find within my grasp seems to have any potential to counter that trend and, indeed, very little seems to be within reach at all.

Internally, I'm feeling stuck like a fly in amber.  I feel paralyzed and impotent.  I can no longer provide for myself in terms of earning a living.  My health has failed me on many levels within the last 6 years.  Where I was once gainfully employed in a rewarding career with a respectable title and ample remuneration, now I feel like no employer would ever consider taking a risk on investing in me.  And beyond my inability to earn an income, there is the death of my creative spirit which lead me to conceive of myself as something of an "artist", an identity which provided a sense of purpose that took me through my adolescence and well into my middle age.  

Creativity seems futile now.  It's just shouting into a void.  There's no one there to hear it and nothing that will come of it.  People say I should keep creating just for my own satisfaction, but they don't seem to understand that self satisfaction is the most fleeting feeling of them all.   It has no more substance than a fart.  It has no more value than patting myself on the back.  And the reason for that is because creative expression is, above all things, a means of communication and that process requires both a transmitter and a receiver and one cannot be both for a message to have any value.  The whole purpose of communication is to transmit information from one place to another.  

If all I'm doing within the process of creation is communicating with myself, then it is no more than a dream, without form or function.  It is redundant to provide myself with information I already have.  I cannot empathize with my own feelings when empathy, by its very nature, requires more than one entity to experience the same thing.  I feel what I feel and I know what I know, but if there's no one else to share that with, then the creative process has no purpose.   

So that brings me back to the hours I spend alone wondering how much longer I have and thinking that I have nothing to work towards and no hope of things getting better.  My health will continue to decline, my financial situation will continue to become more dire and my ability to cope will become more strained.  Everything is on a downward trend with nothing able to reverse the direction of any of those indicators.  My only hope financially is to try to get classified as permanently disabled, which would increase my government income slightly and take the pressure off in terms of the expectation of looking for "work".  For all practical purposes, I am unemployable.  My condition means I could have a heart attack or stroke waiting around the corner at virtually any time.  All those take to trigger is enough stress.  If I do manage to get classified as "PwD" (persons with disability), then what?  Continue to struggle to survive until I keel over?  How many years will I have of that?  

At this point, there is only one outlet that still offers me some satisfaction - the written word.  I haven't tried to create new music for over 2 years.  I haven't wanted to do any video, photography or graphics for nearly as long.  I think I've managed to knock up a couple of stupid memes for posting on line, but who cares.  They never go viral.  Why that would be valuable doesn't even matter.  But I keep writing things.  Somehow what's left of my creative urge has settled into the medium of text and I keep writing things; opinions, reviews, commentary, critiques... etc.  For some reason words keep coming from my fingertips and people keep telling me to write more, so here I am, trying to get these thoughts together in one place.

To that end, I'm starting this little blog.  I don't know how this is supposed to work.  I don't know what I'm supposed to do to get anyone to read this.  I guess I'm just going to figure it out as I go along and see where it goes.  They say, if I get enough traffic, I can monetize this thing and get paid something for it.  Wouldn't THAT be a laugh!  But it doesn't matter anyway.  If I'm going to be compelled to write, I might as well stick these messages in this particular bottle and toss it out into the sea of the internet and maybe it'll drift onto someone's shore.  Maybe they'll even read some of it.  At this point, I have nothing to lose by putting this out there and seeing where it goes.  I don't have any specific direction I plan to take this.  It's just going to be whatever comes out of my fingers at any point in time until my fingers don't work anymore.  That may be sooner than I'd like to admit these days, but that's another consideration.

So if you're finding this and feel like following along, well then you're welcome to and you're welcome to share your thoughts on whatever I write as long as you're nice about it.  I'm not here to take anyone's abuse, so if that's all you've got to offer, no thanks.  Otherwise, I'll always do my best to respond in kind and offer anything I can if you have a question or two.   

Now, where do I go from here?