The failure is sundered within each of us, it festers as blame to others, a manifestation of the shame that belongs not to ourselves but of the participants of a deadlier game. Yet innately the affectation begins with our own visceral manumission of guilt, and sadly, empirically lies buried in our own personal failings.
We ponder all that which seems inherently wrong. We awaken to ourselves each morning and gaze at the soul that stares back at us, and ask, 'What do I know of such things'? Politically we are involved in a myriad of wars; our own political system has become moribund and incapable of decisive and thoughtful long-term beneficial actions. At the same time we have managed to cause a global warming process that may not be reversible, with unfathomably catastrophic consequences. Yet we no longer trust our scientific community, as we undermine their ability to help them help us make informed decisions. Corporations are now the new soulless leaders of the same communities that we raise our children in: our children, pain and agony none withstanding, are but fodder for their institutionalized thought and labor. Lobbyists are but jackals, which obfuscate and enable the lack of clear and forward thinking that would be required to navigate through these complicated times.
Woe be to the participants: the excoriated politicians, the confused and parsed scientists, the unfeeling and automatonic corporations, the jack-booted lobbyists with their narrow-minded obfuscations, and still there are bureaucrats, the ever-plodding stewards of the status quo. All are to blame. It becomes utterly confusing and so we consequently throw up our hands and hope that serendipity might take us all to the promised land of Biblical and Koranic paradises of no responsibility and perfect harmony for all eternity. When we each awaken in the morning and look in the mirror, the failure should be obvious. Our visage stares back at us in mute mirth smirking at our lack of insight. How convenient that they should all provide themselves as cannon fodder for our obvious shortcomings.
Chaos complexity theory applies here in its truest sense. Things are not so simple, and become ever more complicated and require ever more attention then before. The problems today are more complicated; any pandering to a simple explanation is an abject definition of ignorance. There are no backwoods colloquialisms that fit a particular situation, present day analogies aside. The query remains, what we know as a collective, intrinsically defined by what we know individually, and how we apply this knowledge so we can make informed decisions in our lives as well as a people. Requiring less dooms us to failure as the founders of democracy failed in old Greece.
Guilt is a primordial emotion we all feel, and all are too familiar with its cold narcissistic touch. We wrap ourselves in a comforting cocoon of justification, but as the feeling is primordial it is useless to try and escape its darkening touch. It declares us to be unfit fathers and mothers, a chronic waster of valuable time, its ball peen steeliness pounding into us the failures that we truly are. But what an enlightened group we have become, and let us pat ourselves on the back as congratulations are due, as the self-help nation is within its goal of declaring victory on its war on guilt, puncturing its effectiveness and regulating it to some type of psychosis. Perhaps there might be a reason for guilt for it to be a primordial emotion, as is it possible that the survival of our species requires this most irritating and pervasive type of thought. Does complete victory deign us capable of justifying anything?
The fault is our own, in each and every one of us. Ask yourself what you know of history? Middle eastern history might be of value at this point, but what pray tell do you know of any of the underlying political issues of the day? Have you researched them, or are you listening to the ever-shortening descriptions provided by someone else you may know, or perhaps the 15 second sound bite doled out by our media? What do you know of the education system we currently use? What do you know of stem cell research? Are any of the short synopses you've heard something that you would be satisfied with if you or your loved one's life depended upon it? What is string theory? For that matter, what is quantum physics? It has been around for 75 years, and is it really too complicated, or are you really so lazy you just couldn't spare the time? When was the last time you picked up a book, a real book, not a piece of tripe? I know you suffer from the guilt, I do and I read fifty or odd tomes a year, we all suffer, and should.
Guilt is defined as the punishment one can receive when guilty of a moral wrong. Our punishment is as aforementioned and fully justified for the innate failure within each of us not to take the time to be overly educated and informed, to never reach for what we do not know, to not search and forever fulfill the emptiness of our knowledge. Guilt has judged us and is providing the punishment as we speak. |
