Questions for a Broken World
What do you say when you look out upon a broken world, filled with a broken people and their broken promises, devoid of hope, optimism and any dream of a better tomorrow; lying inert upon their cartesian sarcophagus, inside a cave of shadows filled with images of despair? What do you say to such a people, who have given up on any hope of salvation, who toil simply to sustain, for whom caloric intake is a numeric value, for whom joy can only be aggregated and analyzed?
What rituals can such a people have, besides the self-destruction of everyday life? Who are their gods and totems, for those that live without rhythm and imagination? What should they be afraid of, when there is nothing in the dark worse then what they can already see, in the clear light of day? “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” Of course this is true, when our worst fears are based on the actions of others like ourselves, those who live without regret or emotion, as they issue judgement on one another, casting the unused (or unusable) away with a barely justified calculation.
“ A person is a person through other persons.” An appealing concept, until the glare is upon you; until you are in the panoptivision, circled by ogres, squinting in the light. How will they come, when they come for you? This is the question in the back of everyone’s mind; as stockpiles dwindle, who will be the last in line? Who will get some, and who will die? The relentless logic of a shrinking world; devoid of growth, of optimism, always searching for another land or people to undermine.
And yet you look out. You look out upon the world, for “your people”, out on the horizon, with a keen but glassy eye. Because closing your eyes is not an option, one must see to live, even if one does not live to see. There are birds, and waves, and it is still beautiful sometimes, amidst the plastic and debris. Like this, we see glimpses of the world that was, and take it for a reverie; nostalgia, silent longing, comfort in the world that once could be.
Is this real life? I guess it is, or so they say, but mostly it is just looking at things that used to be fun and remembering when they actually were. The joy of childhood, of limitless hope and possibility, of hope and ecstasy and desire, and the disappointment of unmet expectations, robbed by a pandemic, a recession, climate change and maybe even a race war or three.
So here we sit, trapped in mutually assured compliance. To unwind generations of domination, or to look across the chasm and navigate our escape? It is time to tell the truth to ourselves: immigrants do not come to new lands in search of knowledge and a new economy; they come to be subsumed in the vortex, like moths to a flame, desperate to escape poverty, while still embedded within their own feudal pasts and futures.
So where are we to sit, as the final scenes play? Do we sit in the back of the theater and cast aspersions, or in front in rapt attention? Most end up preferring the middle, pretending to watch the movie, while they sleep or eat or slip a finger in. Within this orgy of apathy, the human orchestra builds to a crescendo, a flight to the highest and lowest realms, a panoply of pleasure and destruction, a distraction from nature’s hidden yet certain motives.
How will it end? What will be left? Sober questions for another day. For today is all about movement, in a whirlwind what else remains?
