To humanity. My people. I am not your leader, certainly not a savior. I am but one voice contributing to the cacophony of billions. One waveform in the white noise, yearning for resonance. A love for which I would live.
Family? What is a family beyond its evolutionary function? We are bound by bodies, by memetic transfer. “Blood is thicker than water,” duty bound, and for what? Can a parent claim their child as a conscious act of creation? We are compelled to create life. It happens all the time. A miracle? Perhaps. What a joy it is, then, to live in a universe in which miracles are commonplace.
Here he is, the broken thing. Spiteful of his being, spitting venom at those who only wish to love him. And here I am, seeking respite from a society that cannot help but mold and shape. God created man in his image? No… but people sure as hell do. Mom and Dad, I love you. You gave me life, and here I am holding it with butterfingers?
I need a friend. There, I said it. Family, you can keep your traditions, your primitive tribalism. Narratives held tight by the thinking mind holding up “identity” as its greatest work. That slow and insidious killer, obsessed with building sandcastles washed away daily in the cosmic tide. In its name, sacrifices are made at the altar of self, and we find some superficial belonging in seeing others genuflect, kneel, stand.
Why stop at family? Culture, you fiend! Culture is only three letters more than cult, and I fail to see the impact they have. But, this is important to me. Great… name it God, then, and worship. Kill in its name, launch your crusades. Enslave, convert, seduce. Cling to the identity it provides as the universe pulls you towards truth, and feel your fingers slipping. As they say, you can’t take it with you.
Ownership is the root of all evil. What is money but a means of owning? I see a thing, as pure in its existence as the body writing these words, and I say, “that’s mine.” What? Fool, you don’t even own the hand writing or the mind thinking. Like Chrissie says, “everything’s on loan here.” Okay, commie. You know what, Napoleon, you can leave! Welcome to the real world, snowflake.
What arrogance possesses us to mistake “society” for “the world?” That’s the way it is. Is it? I remember walking through a park during the pandemic, seeing more animals than people for once. Why are you still singing, birds... don’t you know the world has stopped?
Charles looked at birds and described natural selection. Nature selects. We took it and ran, justifying atrocities at home and abroad. See, a lion hunts. A man chooses. A slave obeys. Is there some finish line that we expect genes and languages and traditions to cross and receive their wreaths? Do the living weep for the extinct? Or is it the other way around?
Freedom? Yeah, right. Sing it, Zack. Scream it. Freedom isn’t free. Only because you put a price tag on it. Commodified it. Defined the market, the game. Ripped it from their hands, selling it back. Well make more fuckin' money. This is America. You don't make money, then you're a fuckin' douchebag.
So… yeah, I need a friend. We used to hold hands, we used to find comfort in each other. Now we see only what we wish we had. Am I the problem? Obviously. Entropy dictates that things fall apart, and I crave coming together. But I will not love this machine, this colossus, now or ever again. The nightmare swirls and churns, unending! I will seek the path, if only for the hope of finding them walking it. My kin. A love for which I would live.