It hasn’t been a good week.
Karma is (and has always been) bullshit. I have always wanted to believe that if I did good things, that good would happen to me in return… but that is not how life works, that is not how life has ever worked. The system is geared to always make them win and you lose, every time, even on those rare occasions where you THINK you have won, that has also been to their benefit. It does not matter who the “them” in question even is, just that it is not me and most of time it is not you either. From birth to death we are designed to fight one another for some nonexistent higher ground. We are born and we are in conflict. You grow up with friends and perhaps even lovers but in all of us, and indeed in all of them, they are looking out for themselves and at the first opportunity they will screw you over for their own gain… even if the advantage achieved is pyrrhic at best. Our very nature as animals (I refuse to place humanity above any other animal, not only do we not deserve it but we have not earned it) makes us self centered. Survival instinct is what it’s called. As you try to raise yourself up in life I am looking to do the same and at some point, invariably, that will create conflict between you and I. You WILL screw me over if you think it gives you a more favorable position and as much I like to think I would not, in a survival situation I would most likely do the same to you. Day to day life is the same way, if you obtain anything in life you do so by depriving someone else of something which they in turn took from someone else. Philanthropy does not exist. Philanthropy is a shell game like everything else, it’s done to gain something and to avail an advantage. We all want to attain more and doing so REQUIRES that attainment be paid for by the loss of others. If you get a promotion at work, that means someone else lost a promotion at work. If you win the lottery that means someone else lost the lottery. If you eat a hamburger that means someone else has no hamburger to eat. You take and take and take, that is the design we all live with and it will not change, it can not change.
The system of life in all facets of this planet from the smallest microbe to the largest mammal is built upon taking from, not giving to. Nature makes it a circle where when something is taken it in turn gives back something, but that is unintentional and most likely a side effect more than anything. There is a wealth of give to be sure, a mother to a child for instance but that in itself is part of the system to perpetuate the very system itself. The mother may give while the child is small but that child will then be taken from when the mother ages, the process stands anew and ready to start again. We are all taking from our pre-breaths in the womb to our final dying breaths upon death we take and the system moves along as nature intended, leaving no room for variable.
That is natures system, but what about our more specific man-made system? As I mentioned above, everything you gain in your life as a human cost someone else something of theirs. Those of greater mental capacity figured out long ago, in their attempt to take it all, figured this out and figured out how to game the system… as much as it will allow. They knew if they kept the more ignorant among us (the vast majority I am sorry to state) sedated with vices (drugs, alcohol, gambling), with desires of the flesh (whores), with dreams of averse (the lies of becoming one of them) and through fear (religion) they could remain on top and you would not even notice you were being suppressed. Animals have a similar but less self clouded system. They have castes, they have classes and they have a far more simplified version of our system so this is not a human thing really, this is a life on this planet thing.
Our system though requires subjugation to sustain itself and we as humans do this better than any other species on the planet. In our modern times this is even easier though, the vices are larger and more complex, the desires are easier to sate and the dreams of averse are far easier to perpetuate. Television, the internet and all of the devices (notice vice in within that) that own us* allow for a greater state of control and an even greater ability to take from the weaker. The government is set up as an illusion of choice when all you really have any say over is the face of who your oppressor will be, kind of voting for which style of execution you wish to undergo. They keep you sated with these perpetuated lies about how *YOU* can become just like them, all you need do is sell out just a bit faster, fuck over your neighbor just a bit harder, screw over someone you don’t know just a tad more deviously and you get promoted… the spot of the guy you blew away. It’s all about you and what you want, or rather what they trick you into thinking you want. If you do happen to break free and at least become aware of the game being played on you there is a chance (slim though it might be) to which you can effect minor (note, MINOR) changes for the better. I like to think my work makes me less selfish and more giving to others, that may be nothing more than a lie I tell myself, but I like to think my writing and my shows give back more than I take… no, I know that is a lie actually. I am just like all of you, I take and I look for an opportunity to get ahead, even if that means stepping over all of you to do so. We all get bent over and fucked, some of us just enjoy that more than others.
There is this Richard Matheson story called “Button Button” which is a brilliant illustration of this ideal. A poor couple is offered a chance to get a vast sum of money which will solve all of their problems, all they need do is kill an innocent person with the press of a button, this person is someone who they have never met and who they don’t know. After much soul searching they find this is a price worth paying to get THEM ahead so they press the button. They are given the money and informed that the button will be reprogrammed and given to someone they have never met and who they don’t know… GET IT?? That person will do to them what they did to their victim and the cycle continues.
Now, don’t get me wrong, real and true kindness happens and happens every day, but that is tainted (even tangentially) by the fact that we act kind in the hopes of kindness being returned to us when needed… we are giving in the hope of taking at a later date.
*Don’t think for second you own them, they own you.
Tell me to shut the fuck up at 1201beyond@gmail.com and make sure to leave a comment even if it’s a nasty one (especially if it’s a nasty one).