One day we will wake up and deal with the issues; the poor will not always be with us. We might be stupid chimps with oversize brains and a power-mad vindictive streak, but we have the capacity for compassion and problem solving. We can do it if we want. One day we will come out of our crazy self-centred madness and use our energies for good. We will build and not simply destroy.
Everyone points to the bear-pits, the nuclear war-heads, the Jihads and Crusades. They know better than me.
I am a watcher; an idealistic dreamer.
Jan tells me I do not notice anything about people; what makes them tick. I think she is right.
I am fifty-three. I am comfortable and secure. Perhaps that is the problem? I’ve got something to lose. I can see those seconds ticking. I can see them disappearing before my eyes. The ones that have ticked and the ones to be ticked – they have conspired to trap me here in this nowhere called life.
I sometimes feel aloof as I sit on the bench and look at the crowds scurrying past. They are in such a rush. They have places to go and things to do.
They laugh and scurry about clutching their plastic bags.
Are you and me really like them? Do we mindlessly distract ourselves?
I want to say ‘How the fuck can you be happy?’
Even as you read this millions are starving, getting ill and dying. The numbers of humans are soaring, forests are being chopped down, and animals are being tortured and killed.
How can you be happy when people are being blown apart in wars? When stupid money grabbing corporations are deliberately sewing landmines to blow peoples’ legs off?
How can you be happy when the air is full of carbon dioxide, sulphurous oxides and nitrous oxides; while ozone is being destroyed by CFCs? When water is contaminated by sewage, mercury and radioactive isotopes; our food is full of pesticides and herbicides and the land is eroding and saturated with a cocktail of harmful chemicals? When species are being eradicated faster than at any time in history? When climates are changing, viruses mutating and neonicotinamides are killing the bees?
How can you be happy when inequality creates such extremes? When history is littered with the horrors of the rich and powerful? When all life is hollow and the rich and powerful pull the strings and all they want is more power and wealth and they don’t give a fuck for you, the seas, forests or wild-life?
How can you be happy when religions all claim they are the only way? The wild-eyed zealots claim there is but one God or many Gods and they will fight to the death to prove it. They are desperate to convert you, and, in this day and age, they are burning people alive in cages, burying them alive, butchering their brothers with bombs, drills, acids, rocks and indoctrinating children in factories of hatred.
How can you be happy when every single thing you see and hear is lying propaganda? – When you are being manipulated as a consumer, a member of a target group, a potential voter, a potential problem? You are instructed to know your place and shop.
How can you be happy when each new panacea for the world’s problems is a system run by leaders with vested interests? And none of them can be trusted?
How can you be happy when the aim of dominant males is to dominate everything that breathes – even if that means annihilating everything that lives – just as long as they end up top dog? Better to be undisputed leader of the last ten rather that a leader of a billion among many leaders of billions. They cannot rest while there is still one other potential leader.
How can you be happy when your life is all about owning a third DVD player, another TV and a swish car and you feel shit because your phone is the wrong colour, shape or size? When you are obsessed with the label on your clothes, your body shape and muscle definition? When your new IPad cannot shop fast enough? You need a new one.
How can you be happy when the world is being covered in concrete, corporations buy off politicians, MacDonald’s has a branch on the Amazon river, (which is now concrete lined), the last tree is in a museum and the music you listen to is a product of a mass industry?
How can art be a commodity? How can creativity be assessed?
How can you be happy when nobody cares about the scant 600 Mountain Gorillas we have left? When the world is so depraved that a rich millionaire can pay a fortune to get hunters to kill three precious gorillas in order to capture a baby gorilla, have it ripped from its dead mother’s arms and hauled off to America so he can have it for a pet?
53 and imploding eBook : goodwin, opher: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
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