Good evening. My name is Will. I hope you all are well.
I am great, relatively speaking. Just the usual battles against crushing pessimistic despair and existential malaise.
Humans can be so amazing, and so… so very stupid.
We can launch rockets, put satellites into orbit around our planet and provide an interconnected internet that spans the globe, then use that network to debate whether or not that planet is actually round.
We can create telescopes that capture photons emitted from distant stars millions of years before life began on our planet, and then entertain the idea that somewhere out there is an omniscient being who created it all and also cares deeply about what we do with our weird human genitals.
We kill each other over fairy tales we invented, even though those same fairy tales literally tell us not to kill each other.
We have world wars to fight against empire, fascism, and totalitarianism then decide to elect and support dictators because we like their brand identity.
We painstakingly research and create vaccines that eliminate the diseases that kill us, then once those diseases are almost gone we forget the lessons of the past and become anti-vaxxers.
We give billion dollar corporations tax breaks and punish people in poverty for working overtime.
We can experience incredible luck, random good fortune, inherent advantages that have nothing to do with our personal effort and then believe we earned it. Privilege is not merit, but we soothe our egos by believing it is.
For thousands of years we have subjugated and discriminated against half our population because they have different reproductive equipment installed at launch. We do the same thing for skin colour, language, or culture. No matter how small a subgroup is we find a way to fragment it further and create a fictitious separation of us and them.
We live on a beautiful, amazing, paradisiacal planet, but we let a privileged few turn it into a gnashing hellscape of Amazon warehouses and Walmarts interspersed with server farms.
We boil our rivers to churn out AI clickbait and calculate meme coin ledgers that enrich corrupt sociopaths.
It was supposed to be like “Welcome to America, we have endless optimism, equality, and freedom from dogma and superstition!” but it has turned into “Welcome to Amurica, we have lead in the water, profit-based healthcare, and state sponsored concentration camps!”
Land of the free and home of the brave but also of rape apologists, elementary school shootings, and the resurgence of measles.
We purport to venerate those who display exceptional selflessness and give to others, but in our actions we worship those who are the most selfish and amass the most resources for themselves. It is in the power of the top few resource hoarders on the planet to literally eliminate poverty EVERYWHERE. It wouldn’t even affect them beyond a small change in the digits shown in their net worth calculation. Yet that few would rather spend their money to fight tooth and nail against any attempt to legislate equality and basic human rights.
As humans we have an inherent drive to collect resources to impress our fellows, yet those people who have accumulated the most are almost universally hated because of the way they gained that wealth. Those who don’t hate them are uninformed or brainwashed by propaganda. Can you imagine how the majority would react if the few decided to actually use their resources to feed the planet instead of trying to escape from it?
And what is the endgame? Being rich is only fun if you have nice things. Nice things come from artists. Art comes from individuality. Training a fancy Mad-libs machine to “create” art can only go so far. It only works because it has been trained on centuries of individual artists’ output. It can only rehash or remix what has already been. Just because you can’t tell the difference between AI slop and human-created slop doesn’t mean there is no difference. We will get tired of leftovers. We will always need people to create new things.
Think of a special event, a party, a gathering, something that everyone wants to get in on, to be a part of. What makes it cool, desirable, attractive? It is the people; interesting people, special people, unique people. Rockstars. Artists. Storytellers. Iconoclasts. Creators. A world without them is a sad, sterile world. You can’t have rockstars without a system that supports them. Increased profit margins and shareholder value do not create magic.
This planet is a tiny bubble of life, a mote of habitability in uncountable miles of indifferent hostility. Short of death, leaving is not an option. Not without a concerted effort that transcends our current cultural and political boundaries.
The chance of each one of us existing at all is so astronomically small that it might as well be zero, yet we take experiencing life as a given. We even get bored with it.
I shouldn’t be surprised, really. Our brains and consciousness are the result of a clusterf***, a slumgullion of separate systems that evolved for discrete purposes and somehow manage to work together despite countless internal flaws and hacked workarounds. We are capable of rational thought, but it’s really so much easier and more exciting to just blindly follow our emotions.
A vicious man (and it is almost always a man who fits this profile, let’s be honest), a selfish manipulator, a liar, cannot imagine that others could be any different, and he will act accordingly in his pursuit of power. The ends justify the means. If he doesn’t take advantage, someone else will, right?
Unfortunately the same goes for a kind person, an empathetic person, a truthful person. We cannot truly fathom how anyone could act in any other way, WITHOUT consideration of others and truth. Do unto others, right?
Good lord (pun intended), if there is any part of the Christian doctrine we should actually listen to, that is it. Not original sin, not the Nicene creed, not life at conception, transubstantiation, or any of those other pieces that have stuck around around like a raspberry seed stuck in a molar.
From the harsh and uncaring milieu of millions of years of kill or be killed we have somehow evolved to feel empathy, or at least some of us have. This is astounding.
So what do we do? How can we manage the paradox of tolerance? Who or what can ever be the final arbiter of justice without succumbing to corruption and selfishness? We certainly can’t trust most religious or political leaders. Throughout history those who seek power have failed over and over again in this respect. We need leaders who don’t want power, as those are the only ones who can be trusted with it. We need people in charge who feel the weight of the world, the weight of the responsibility granted them. Those whose only goal is to raise others up and improve the lives of all. Those who do not see wealth as a measure of merit. Those who respect objectivity and logic, who can admit that they don’t know everything. Those who will not use the power of emotion and demagoguery to pander to that portion of the masses who can be swayed by such tactics, who don’t know any better.
What is the point of getting worked up about it anyways?
Within 100 years the vast majority of us alive right now will probably be dead. All of our thoughts and cares and opinions will be gone. Unless we have the temerity to inflict those views on others, like I am doing now.
What is the actual f*** of it all?
From a purely biological perspective the f*** of it is the only point, making sure those alleles and DNA continue beyond our individual lifespans. Basic as it may be, at least it is fun.
Some say we are the cosmos perceiving itself. Every one of the atoms that make up our bodies and everything we perceive was born from the death of stars, from the quantum entanglements that began in the nanoseconds after the birth of our universe. Very high-minded and noble. I love that idea. I am a sucker for that kind of thing because I am a dork.
But really, we are the universe F***ING itself. And that is fucking cool bro. The universe F***S. But we are also the universe f***ing itself over.
So are we just complicated meat vehicles for little squiggles of protein? We bumble around following unknowable directives at the behest of our inner pilots, like ants taken over by an entomopathogenic cordyceps fungus. Great, right, nothing is our fault! Not quite, sorry. Unfortunately we are conscious, and we do have some modicum of control over our own actions.
Just think about it for a minute. Inside each being is an entire cosmos of perception, a world of feelings, emotions, of life. A unique version of the universe resides inside each and every mind that exists. When you inflict the consequences of your existence on someone else, whatever the means or method, you affect a whole universe.
We must transcend our brutal heritage. We must choose to rise above the selfishness and egocentricity that has defined our species. And we must not cede power over to those members of our species who who choose not to.
A rising tide lifts all boats. We must all be that tide.
-W.L. Taylor