Cherry St. Storage

photo credit: BL1961

On the eve of my 45th birthday, I stop to consider how many times I want to check out of the human race.  The selfishness, the myopia, the steady decline of civility, the increase of stupidity… all of it makes me angry that I have to face it every day.  My weakness, it is, that I prefer solitude to engagement.  I’m working on that, but it doesn’t erase my reasons for wanting to stay away.

That being said, it’s when I look up at the night sky that I realize there is more to life than being human.  There are the millions of species other than homo sapien that call this planet home.  There are the hundreds of miles of ocean depth that have yet to be seen or understood.  There are probably more modalities of life than we can see that are living with us – they may even be laughing silently as we run ourselves to extinction.

But, more than all of that, I look up at night and realize how small it all is in the face to the infinity above.  We are a tiny speck of dust swimming in a  vast particle sea.  We are but fuzz on a single peach in an endless ocean of fruit.  Held against the backdrop of the universe, we do not even cast a shadow.

And, knowing that, the fear and anger this century brings me drops away, if just for a moment.  Because, in the final rinse, it means nothing.  Only I remain, and that’s enough.

photo credit: iNelsonRocha

This is to the guy in the expensive import sports coupe that almost killed me this afternoon.  You – the guy that ran past the streetcar at 5pm today, on King Street at Parliament, as the doors were opening.  If the doors had opened a second earlier…if I had looked left instead of right…you would have taken me from my loved ones forever.  You SELFISH BASTARD!

What was so f-ing important that you can’t wait?  What makes you think that your time is more precious than my life, or anyone else’s that was descending to the street?  How f-ing self-centered and self-important are you that you are blind to the world around you?  Or is it…is it that you are so rich, so pampered, so self-absorbed, that the world is below you?  Are you so jacked up on greed that people are expendible?  Are you so deluded by your own wealth that you think the public should part before you?

I have to wonder…

Our world in North America has become so brutally fast, and the people in it so sickenlingly self-posessed.  The disease of entitlement is epidemic.  We glorify consumption, we deify greed, we sanctify wealth.  We define ourselves by what we own, what we do, where we live, how we look.  We run and we run and we run, and yet no one can answer why we should run.  No one questions why, so powerful is this delusion – no one seems to see the curtain hiding the imposter Wizard, never mind look behind it to unveil the truth.

It is a runaway train now – one so long no one can see the engine pulling it.  More and more, I see a fiery, calamitous end to this world, since so few can even sense the gathering wind in our faces.

So – to the idiot that decided his life was more important than mine today – if you ever read this – or if your friend’s friend’s friend reads this – I hope your license is stripped from you before you actually do kill someone.

And to anyone that may read this – scream with me.  Let your rage be seen for the blinded rich to fear.  Stand up to the lies your society has forced on you.  And for all our sakes, pull the brakes if you can reach them.  It’s time we stopped to live.