cabin fever

We are becoming increasingly disenchanted with ourselves. In an overpopulated petri dish, allies eventually become competitors. In addition, we all have to compete with frankly superhuman fictional characters and glamorised celebrities sold to us by a money grubbing media.

Money makes the world go round. We say it until it becomes a cliché. It then loses its meaning you see, and we forget the unpleasant reality that underpins it. Like jokes about aging and its inevitable conclusion. Knowledge loses its impact with time; familiarity breeds indifference. Clichés shouldn’t be used less, we should just remind ourselves what they mean from time to time. Assuming we want to remember.

One could be forgiven for assuming that as we evolve we would remember more of previous generations, but that is not the case. I think generational gaps are widening and so is the contempt for our parents and their parents, who are rendered obsolete by Moore's law at a younger age. Chances are whatever good qualities you posess, you still feel inferior to too many others perceived to be better looking, smarter, funnier, nicer, thinner. We're all depressingly expendable.

It’s ironic that in this supposed age of individualism, most individuals have become less rather than more appreciated. A simple blacksmith of a small medieval village enjoyed the respect and admiration of his the town folk because he delivered a crucial and tangible product. He sensed an appreciation and this naturally pleased him, giving him a sense of self-worth.

I sometimes wish I were Asterix, regularly saving his village with his cunning, which is dearly appreciated by the villagers. I would even settle for Unhygenix, the guy who sells fish of a suspect maturity. He’s the best they have, so they have no choice but to appreciate him.

These days you open a phone book and can choose from a 100 insurance salesmen, each of them delivering indistinguishable products and quality of service. Whatever service it is you offer to earn your place in this world you probably suspect it can be done more competently and efficiently by countless peers.

You could say that there is only so much respect, admiration, and self-worth going around. It does not increase pro rata as the population doubles every 20 years, implying a lower average per person. We are marginalising ourselves by not being able to switch off our genes’ command to go forth and multiply, which was a good strategy 500 years ago, but is now not only obsolete but misguided. I struggle to understand why a bigger emphasis is not placed on population control, but I suspect it has something to do with money. HIV is sad, overpopulation is tragic.

This is a shit way to look at yourself and others, but constantly being bombarded by a value system becoming more and more GDP oriented eventually takes its toll on your view of yourself and the world in which you live.

The remedy, I am starting to realize, is to make a concerted effort to have a direct benevolent impact, however small, on those you hold dear.