Ned Flanders
Banned
It's odd...lately I've been stewing a lot on the state of our existence as mankind, and in relation to our planet. I'm one of those people who finds it difficult sometimes to focus on things that are often considered most important in life (career, daily routines, where I'm going to live, school etc) when I think of the downward spiral that humanity appears caught in. While I wish I could attribute these thoughts to some kind of depressed mental state or a freak occurance of negative events, the fact is that all my feelings of negativity feel born of a completely rational assessment of current trends across the globe.
As an American, you'd like to think that I should be reveling in my wealth of opportunity and material culture. While I do enjoy the creature comforts afforded me, it feels very much like an empty chase..for every temptation to succeed or excel, I see a materialistic goal driving it. For those familiar with the concept of the "Affluent society", sometimes I feel like a mouse on a wheel in pursuit of the newest "manufactured want" that capitalist society can crank out. While at times I can be just as frivolous as the next man, I almost always return to a sense of self-disgust when pondering throwing away money at my newest material trophy or pursuing more income for the sake of bigger toys. Some of these feelings come as much from the sense of hopelessness regarding the system itself as they do from questioning whether my satisfaction in "consuming" is genuine. Affluent societies are hinged on the creation of more debt, and national and personal debt in America continues to spiral out of control. I see the sustainability of our economic system thinning, particularly in the face of red China and increasing globalization (and thusly the de-nationalising of our wealth and workforce). But even if the status quo were infinitely sustainable in the face of the crises of credit and global influence, I still don't like the materialist rat race nature of America's socio-economic structure. American ideals of democracy and equality float quite well with me, but the permeating influence of corporate culture leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's hard to feel good about reaping the rewards from a system you feel is fundamentally flawed and perhaps doomed.
So American life is bugging me...but there's plenty else to love about the rest of the world, right? Well on the broader scale, I have similar feelings of looming hopelesness when I look at the rest of the planet as a whole. While there's plenty of good and bad to be found on the various socio-politcal and economic fronts across the globe, I feel like even if I were to move somewhere that better suited my tastes that I would still be living on borrowed time. Just today I picked up a US News & World Report special edition periodical on "The Future of Earth". It does contain some positive considerations ("Living without oil"..the day can't come soon enough), but it is largely centered around the significant alterations that mankind has and continues to make to our planet. Alterations for the worse, mind you. Within the various articles are detailed discussions of melting glaciers, scary statistics regarding overfishing, satellite photographs of a perpetual cloud of smoke and pollutants looming over southeast Asia, and documentation of increasingly erratic and destructive weather patterns. While some positive suggestions are given with regard to detering the effects of our current carelessness, the inevitable feeling is that, given the exponential increase in human population growth, that we are at best heading toward a future of interplanetary exile in search of more space (or perhaps an unsoiled habitat), and at worst towards large scale destruction at the hands of our own planet.
So maybe it sounds a bit silly being so negative about the state of the planet given that any truly devastating mass consequence would likely be beyond my lifetime. But to that I would offer an analogy. Assume you were on the Titanic, communications severed and struck by a glacier destined to sink it. Though trapped on the leisure deck loaded with food, booze, and sexy women willing to have a final multiple orgasm before dying, could you possibly enjoy these fleeting comforts given that you know it all, you included, will be resting on the ocean floor before sunrise? Maybe I'm just being overly pessimistic, especially considering that we're all going to die eventually anyway and that even if the world were rife with peace, love, and mutual responsibility, that it would all end for each of us someday. But for whatever reason, I can't seem to justify throwing myself into the frivolous pissing of it all just to get some kind of cheap fulfillment out of life.
I don't know what my personal solution is. One option would certainly be to push it out of my mind and live the life of the typical American, following the doctrine of debt, frivolity and the pursuit of crappiness. Another would be to flee from the negativity of modern suburban comfort and live somewhere more isolated in nature, to enjoy it while it's here. Probably the most noble of things to do would be to attempt to do something about all this crap I'm bitching about. After all, so many of these movies I've seen have convinced me that one person can make a difference. Maybe the satisfaction in making any sort of difference at all would be enough for me to maintain some kind of hope for a brighter future for mankind and earth. I don't know. But I do know that my general negativity toward what I see as a degenerating reality has actually started to effect my daily thoughts and activities.
Anyway...I'm off to go watch reality TV shows on the plasma screen in my H3.
As an American, you'd like to think that I should be reveling in my wealth of opportunity and material culture. While I do enjoy the creature comforts afforded me, it feels very much like an empty chase..for every temptation to succeed or excel, I see a materialistic goal driving it. For those familiar with the concept of the "Affluent society", sometimes I feel like a mouse on a wheel in pursuit of the newest "manufactured want" that capitalist society can crank out. While at times I can be just as frivolous as the next man, I almost always return to a sense of self-disgust when pondering throwing away money at my newest material trophy or pursuing more income for the sake of bigger toys. Some of these feelings come as much from the sense of hopelessness regarding the system itself as they do from questioning whether my satisfaction in "consuming" is genuine. Affluent societies are hinged on the creation of more debt, and national and personal debt in America continues to spiral out of control. I see the sustainability of our economic system thinning, particularly in the face of red China and increasing globalization (and thusly the de-nationalising of our wealth and workforce). But even if the status quo were infinitely sustainable in the face of the crises of credit and global influence, I still don't like the materialist rat race nature of America's socio-economic structure. American ideals of democracy and equality float quite well with me, but the permeating influence of corporate culture leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's hard to feel good about reaping the rewards from a system you feel is fundamentally flawed and perhaps doomed.
So American life is bugging me...but there's plenty else to love about the rest of the world, right? Well on the broader scale, I have similar feelings of looming hopelesness when I look at the rest of the planet as a whole. While there's plenty of good and bad to be found on the various socio-politcal and economic fronts across the globe, I feel like even if I were to move somewhere that better suited my tastes that I would still be living on borrowed time. Just today I picked up a US News & World Report special edition periodical on "The Future of Earth". It does contain some positive considerations ("Living without oil"..the day can't come soon enough), but it is largely centered around the significant alterations that mankind has and continues to make to our planet. Alterations for the worse, mind you. Within the various articles are detailed discussions of melting glaciers, scary statistics regarding overfishing, satellite photographs of a perpetual cloud of smoke and pollutants looming over southeast Asia, and documentation of increasingly erratic and destructive weather patterns. While some positive suggestions are given with regard to detering the effects of our current carelessness, the inevitable feeling is that, given the exponential increase in human population growth, that we are at best heading toward a future of interplanetary exile in search of more space (or perhaps an unsoiled habitat), and at worst towards large scale destruction at the hands of our own planet.
So maybe it sounds a bit silly being so negative about the state of the planet given that any truly devastating mass consequence would likely be beyond my lifetime. But to that I would offer an analogy. Assume you were on the Titanic, communications severed and struck by a glacier destined to sink it. Though trapped on the leisure deck loaded with food, booze, and sexy women willing to have a final multiple orgasm before dying, could you possibly enjoy these fleeting comforts given that you know it all, you included, will be resting on the ocean floor before sunrise? Maybe I'm just being overly pessimistic, especially considering that we're all going to die eventually anyway and that even if the world were rife with peace, love, and mutual responsibility, that it would all end for each of us someday. But for whatever reason, I can't seem to justify throwing myself into the frivolous pissing of it all just to get some kind of cheap fulfillment out of life.
I don't know what my personal solution is. One option would certainly be to push it out of my mind and live the life of the typical American, following the doctrine of debt, frivolity and the pursuit of crappiness. Another would be to flee from the negativity of modern suburban comfort and live somewhere more isolated in nature, to enjoy it while it's here. Probably the most noble of things to do would be to attempt to do something about all this crap I'm bitching about. After all, so many of these movies I've seen have convinced me that one person can make a difference. Maybe the satisfaction in making any sort of difference at all would be enough for me to maintain some kind of hope for a brighter future for mankind and earth. I don't know. But I do know that my general negativity toward what I see as a degenerating reality has actually started to effect my daily thoughts and activities.
Anyway...I'm off to go watch reality TV shows on the plasma screen in my H3.
