Lost in Ad Space

I get annoyed at the farcical nature of human problems that in essence aren’t human at all. I don’t want, anymore, to listen to the constant dripping of everyday sorrow. Instead, give me the problems of fire building and f*****g to deal with and we will solve them. I want to kick pieces of square board with my right foot; breaking them in half and watching the two pieces clatter to the floor. Aggression rules with caffeine now, and there is little time to continue with the stupidity and pettiness of human life. I love everyone but there is no doubt that I love myself more and wish to steer this ship into a newfound world of mishap, away from falsity, to discover independently  Desperation is the one thing that keeps us ready and on our toes like nothing else.

Instead, everything is easy and our best inventions are designed to make life easier rather than better. We have light in our houses but the bulb was first used a hundred years ago. What have we done since? There is the lightbulb then there are special devices so women can pee standing up. All of the money is put into curing cancer and HIV despite the light at the end of that tunnel being eclipsed by money itself. A cure for either will take a reliable source of income from the gods of this world. Sick people are more profitable than dead ones.  The best investment humankind can make, still, is to think and to accept and to live together in peace. The number of people that would be saved is far higher than a cure for any disease. And yet there we are, spending money on increasing conflict deaths and curing sick people. Killing the strong and saving the weak. All in the name of profit. Oh, and patriotism and religion.

Religion is obviously the lowest form of thought we have in the world today, which is why it prospers as fervently as tribal sports and tales of good and evil. We all search for full stops but, because we still don’t know what happened in the beginning of time, there is no end to find anyway. That question of why? (Why are we here?) is so utterly pointless and devoid that only idiots and fools should even consider it. But we continue to ask it because there has to be some kind of knot to tie the whole story together. Meaning.  And meaning, or significance, comes best served with categorization. It is no surprise that the United States has invented national sports where games cannot, under any circumstance, be drawn. There is always a winner and life is black and white in every way. The colour grey doesn’t seem to exist in America and that is why their society is so hopelessly naïve. There is a big box and few Americans are adept at thinking outside of it, hence the reliance on religion, sport and aggressive two-party politics. It follows that any type of welfare will be called socialism and any type of cull on taxes is dismissed as stupid, with the liberals preferring, always, to assume intellectual superiority. In American politics every colour is a shade of red and blue and the most-free nation in the world is more paralysed by categorisation than any other.

Free-thought, in essence, does not fit the western model. The poor are tricked into thinking they can be rich and they are proud of it. They are proud because of the Good vs Evil propaganda that is so ruthlessly fed to them. Patriotism casts a long and blinding shadow over reason and self-respect, love and peace. All the while the rich send their ‘brothers’ into war in order to build the coffers under the premise of nationalism. This is true in every country.

The United States is the largest corporation the world has ever known. In many ways America is no different from the East India Tea Company. The English provided this colonial corporation with men at arms and huge sums of money in order to colonise and essentially rape India of its goods. The United States is doing the same thing for the rich and powerful men that lead the country’s businesses. Now that businesses have the money the roles have simply reversed. Arms and trade are still the most profitable businesses in the world and America tops the list for them all. Russia and China are similarly excellent. Has nobody in America ever thought that Russian and Chinese people are told that America is evil? Can they not see that the premise of the stars and stripes is a fickle as the hammer and sickle? Orwell criticised the Soviet Union and its censorship but a Russian once said “At least we all know our government is lying to us. The truly remarkable thing is that you, in the west, believe yours is telling the truth.” Aldous Huxley foresaw a world where a blanket of information was used to nullify the brain. The opposite of censorship, oversaturation deflects the brains attention with mirrors of false rights and wrongs. Debates about sport and reality TV and the actions of celebrities are found at the forefront of news as the ruling corporations, which now run the news, fight for eyeballs and not the truth. (Regular readers of The Sun would have had no idea about the News of the World scandal. It was never reported because Rupert Murdoch owned both newspapers. This is despite it featuring on the front page of every other newspaper in Britain and the rest of the world. The Sun is not a NEWS-paper, it is a celebrity zoo where people go to judge other humans. There are many others like it and it is our fault because it is what we want.)  Get the people interested in Nothing and they are never interested in Something.

The TRUTH is lost. Does it matter though? Do we need the truth? Some would argue that, without the truth, people are unshackled from worry and can enjoy the fruits of society. Well, the question becomes, what is society and does it even exist anymore? Humans are fragmented by corporations into manageable pieces that can be targeted with specific advertising and ideals. Headphones and the internet mean we no longer have to speak to one another to learn about anything. We can avoid the news and just read what we want, which makes us more refined and subsequently less objective. When we choose our information there is no need to question it. We are, essentially, far easier to influence. Liberals read liberal newspapers and accept the truth, just as conservatives watch Fox News and believe in faux analysts. Both extremes are stupid because the extreme of anything naturally lacks balance and balance is the key to life. ‘United we stand, divided we fall’ is a well-known and brilliant suggestion listened to only in sports. Imagine a world where humans were content without power. Sports are where most people express their tribal instincts. To help one-another, to fight for a cause. They also over-exaggerate the importance of competition and ensure people remain divided. Sport is great but it is only important because of the money. And the money is from the people.  Governments can rest assured that our energies are sapped by the most beautiful, important irrelevances ever to exist.  He was born to play football, they say. He wasn’t though, was he.

Facebook is the best example of everything that is wrong with the world. Here is one man that is worth billions when his company’s riches could just be shared with everyone. Imagine a social networking site with half of the planet’s population on it. Imagine the advertising money all being shared out between the users, with the rest paid to the working staff. Right now Facebook, and more so Google, make money from selling your data. In effect, people no longer own their privacy and that privacy is actually being sold at market. Shouldn’t we all be allowed to make money from our own interests, instead of a large company doing so.

Our personalities are being sold to advertisers, who are trying to shape them. Our individuality is being categorized, and we are being made to believe those categories shape our individuality. Our ideas are being suppressed, and we think their ideas are ours. When people look back on our age I fear, and expect, that it will be known as an age of stupidity. An age when OUR meant nothing.

Dear god, help us.

Reviews

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Dear God, help us indeed.
Some serious thoughts here, Ryan.
For the most part I can empathise with you. For the most part I share your sentiments.
A few points of difficulty I will mention though is; please be careful you don't tar all humanity and all culture (humanitys' earliest invention) with the same brush. i.e: you mentioned the rich sending brothers to war in order to fatten the coffers, and that this is true of all countries. But this isn't the case. All countries don't do this, nor for those reasons...
Second thing is something you mentioned in your first paragraph. You want to "steer this ship into a new found world of mishap" ?? What the ... ?? It seems to me that when everyone goes agressively after independence and self reliance, there-in lies the cause to most of the problems in our society - which you so clearly outlined in the proceeding lines. And if it is your belief that desperation alone can shock you back into your instincts and thus hohne your authentic self, then times such as these you must surely embrace and celebrate, not deride nor react indignant.
Your feeling in this piece is unmistakably strong and impassioned. I have to admire that. I think for the sake of a writing like this though, you might benefit with a little more time for deliberation.
Thanks for sharing :-)