We're
just like the fish; we don't know what water is. But the element in which we swim, the element that is impossible
for us to recognize, is stress.
You
may think you know you're stressed.
This isn't the kind of stress I'm talking about. We have become denizens of a culture that is
actually a Torture Machine. It drives
us insane by presenting demands so complex as to be impossible to achieve.
Every day, it issues orders to our nervous systems. Turn your left blinker. Pay your insurance premium. Pick up your kids' school uniforms. Don't forget the doctor's appointment. Where'd you put the McFarland file? Where are the paper clips? Why is this milk sour? Now I have to return it to the store. Screw it; not worth my time, flush it down
the sink. Are the dogs' vaccinations up
to date?
Do I have the receipts for my
tax audit?
Why
am I always left with the feeling that I've forgotten to do a homework
assignment? Who is this screaming at
me, right next to my ear so that it hurts? The Occupy Wall Street people
are scurvy hippies. Our government is
letting corporations steal on a massive scale.
My bank account only exists long enough for the auto-payments to hit,
and it's gone and I've got nothing left to spend.
I
think I'm going crazy. I don't have any
sexual desire at all. The last time I
felt truly alive was....when? Have I
ever felt truly alive? I don't
think so.
There's nothing to look forward
to. My old age will merely be a time
when insurance machines squeeze the remaining dollars from my estate, leaving
my kids with nothing. Zero. The globe is warming up. It's true.
The waters are creeping on shore, slowly. The future is a tsunami.
OUR
SOCIETY IS A TORTURE MACHINE, so complex that it takes a genius to maneuver its
daily routine. It tortures by its
relentless pressure. We don't need
Stalin or Hitler. We have modern life
in Amerika. See that guy with the
cardboard sign sitting at the parking lot exit? "Will work for food."
He isn't a pathetic loser. He's
you or me or someone we know who just cracked under the pressure and opted to
sit in the TIME OUT box in front of everyone.
He couldn't take the complexity any more. Now he's doing better. He has a shoe box where his money piles
up. He's doing better than I am! Could I take sitting in the TIME OUT box in
front of everyone? I don't think
so. I'm not tough enough.
Life
has always been complex, but not like this...Hunting, gathering, fighting off
raiders, that was easy stuff compared to this.
The modern Torture Machine can't be dodged. Your assignment is late!
Punishment will be swift and merciless!
Your interest will rise, your credit will be cut.
The
injustice of it! I'm choking on
injustice. I can't breathe! Give me a cigarette. Where are all these voices coming from? Let me turn off the radio. The off switch doesn't
work. The voices are coming from my
pocket. It's my Z-Phone. Its off switch doesn't work either. The argument continues, shouting everywhere,
lies compound in blatant and shameless huckstering. Everything is a trick.
Even the tricks we know to be tricks conceal more subtle tricks. Those Black Lives Matter types are going to
burn down Los Angeles in a giant riot.
Quick, we'd better launch a pre-emptive pogrom, mow them down before
they find out where we've stashed the money.
The
fish don't recognize the sea. Modern humans don't recognize the element that dominates our lives. I will coin a term for it:
Phobagonovia.
Phobe-ago-NOVE-ee-yah. It causes
us to curl up inside our homes with the giant TV playing football games and
scripted "reality" shows where people are abused by their
in-laws. Phobagonovia. We are afraid of new experiences. The Torture Machine has implanted this
condition in our nervous systems. We
are afraid of relating to one another openly, of crying in front of strangers,
of expressing feelings easily, of hugging or kissing spontaneously, lest we be
inappropriate, our strait jacket is "Appropriate", we haven't a clue
how to dance in a circle while deeply in love with members of a clan, to sing
ancient songs, to sit around a fire feeling wonderful under the stars. That doesn't mean we want to go
backwards. We want to invent new
communities. We are dying of
Phobagonovia. Our neck ties are cutting
off our breath. Our high heels are
warping our skeletons. The future is
over. Rush Limbaugh will be reborn as a
talking pig that can only sputter nonsense. The people of his remote village
will laugh at him holding their sides with mirth. They will postpone the time to eat him. He's so strange that
people come from villages far away to throw him pieces of rubbish. His time will come, at last.
When
the chief takes the first bite, he will spit it out.
"We
laughed too long," he will say.
"This fat talking pig tastes like shit."
