_chris_

I just got home from a late-night cigarette/cappuccino run up to the gas station. All I got was a pack of Camel Lights, ten dollars worth of gas, and an English Toffee Cappuccino. The cappuccino was all right, I guess, not quite like the shit I make at work, but reasonably yummy, considering that it's fucking 4:30 in the morning and no other place is open at this time of night.

I was thinking the other day about everything in general. I was staring at trees and silly little birds that kept flying about in the trees and power lines in the front yard, birds that inevitably land on the power lines, only to shit on my car... I was thinking about the idea that nature photographers, scientists, environmentalists, etc, have... That in nature, there's this "survival of the fittest" mentality to everything. Eat or be eaten. I agree with this, sort of, but it occurred to me, as I was daydreaming about nothing in particular, that there's more to the grand scheme of things. The "eat or be eaten" scenario is part of something bigger. If you look at a lot of people, they always have to get more and more. More money. Faster and bigger cars. Nicer and more grandiose houses and mansions. The best and the biggest they can possibly achieve, within reason (but not always).

What I noticed was, that... If you look at plants, in a purely biological sense, they only tend to use up what they need to survive. If the soil runs out of nutrients, then the plant will cease to grow any taller and will maintain itself as it is, for as long as is possible, possibly dying in the process, or, over a period of time, it will evolve, much as orchids and vine-y type plants have, and will continue on in the only, albeit limited, way that it "knows" how. For proof, look at pine trees. Dandelions. Sunflowers. Cannabis sativa. If you look at any animal or plant in nature, there is never any conception of greed in any way, shape, or form. Even if you want to poke holes in this theory, and say, "Well, what about bears, and lions, and tigers... They can be greedy", I agree, but keep in mind that these animals might eat once a month sometimes, sometimes, even less often than that. Anacondas, the "biggest" snakes in the world, have been known to eat one gigantic meal and not eat for more than a year sometimes. They're big fucking animals, that require a lot of food. Their metabolisms tend to be slower than say, a hummingbird's, simply because of their sheer size and bulk. If a Siberian Tiger had the metabolism of a sewer rat, it would die within days simply from the impracticality of eating that much food. Its teeth and jaws, facial muscles and such, couldn't possibly handle that kind of stress... Of course they're going to be piggy when it comes down to eating, but put it all in perspective, and they're no more greedy than microscopic amoebae.

Which brought me to the idea of people. People tend to be fucking greedy, and needlessly so. Yes, like everyone else, I think it would be the fucking shit to have millions of dollars and be able to buy anything I could ever want or imagine, but think about it... Why would you want to? This led me to consider the idea of private ownership of shit and capitalism and whatnot, versus the ideas of communism and the lack of private ownership of anything, with socialist-type systems falling somewhere inbetween. Why are people so hell-bent on having more than the next guy? I mean, I think it's cool that I have the things I have, and I quite like having them, but it's not as if I'm trying to outdo anyone, or trying to get more than the guy living next door, or my friends, or some nameless person living in a one-room-flat in downtown London. It seemed odd to me at the time, and it still seems odd to me, that people will pay shitloads of money for cars that will adjust your seat back to its original position when you place the key in the door and hit a button. Air conditioning for the left/right/front/back. Houses with gold-inlaid porcelain bidets. Gold-plated playing cards for George Dubya to play solitaire with, as he's flying about the country on Air Force One (even though I doubt his capacity to begin to understand even the most basic of card games), all paid for with tax dollars, no less. People driving around Fayetteville in their fucking gas-guzzling SUVs, with Bush/Cheney stickers on the back windows, creating the demand for petrol everywhere, forcing this country to maintain strained (selective) relations in the Middle East, while remaining hostile to others in the same region... It just makes me fucking sick to my stomach, to know that I, whether I like it or not, am a part of everything. It makes me sick to be an American, at the very least. It's like I'm surrounded by the most irresponsible, fucked-up people imaginable, and they don't even see what they're doing, and have no intention of ever changing. When things get a bit too heavy, we'll just pawn it off on someone else, and keep on going the way we always have. It's sickening. Seriously.

Look at other countries and check out what they've been doing all this time. Virtually every other industrialized nation on the planet has some sort of subsidized health care system, and likewise with educational systems. Yes, they demand more from their citizens, tax-wise, but they get more back from it, as well... True, the medical facilities aren't always as advanced as "ours" (even though a lot of our stuff is developed and manufactured outside of this country, anyway), but when people are in need, which do you think they'll appreciate more, standardized treatments or no treatment at all, being turned away in a flurry of paperwork and medical profit margins? At least their citizens would have more to show for their tax dollars than imported, ridiculously expensive, handcrafted toilet seats for visitors to foreign embassies. Something more than salaries for (supposedly) honest governmental leaders, who do nothing more than simply push the fucking religious agendas of various "right-wing" groups who wish for nothing more than a nation of people blinded by willful adherence to outdated principles and ignorant beliefs.

It's amazing how staring at birds in a tree brought me to an appreciation of aspects of socialism and communism, and made me wish I could simply take a shower and wash off my "Americanness". In my mind, it's not so much "survival of the fittest", but more of a sense of taking what you need and not being a greedy motherfucker about it...

Of course, when it comes to art, music, books, and everything else along those lines, I'm just as guilty as everyone else I know... I HAVE to have music and books. And artsy shit, with nice pics, printed on shiny, acid-free pages, made from trees chopped down in numbers I probably can't even conceive of. Shit is just retarded sometimes. I don't even know where to begin, because it seems like everything in my mind just goes on and on, eventually returning to where it started, going in circles upon itself, over and over... I try to have a pretty good handle on what I'm talking about, so if anything seems askew or completely fucking wrong, feel free to call me out on it, but I'm the kind of person who likes to know both sides to any argument before I start talking shit... If this is a play, I'd like to know both my lines AND yours...

Fucking shit. Everything makes my head hurt. Thinking makes me feel crazy, like I'm completely out of my mind. I think I need to try to stop thinking so much, and maybe then I can be like everyone else.

Sorry if I bored you with my bullshit ramblings.

I'm going to sleep now. Calling it a night. I wish I could get paid to sleep, I would so rock that fucking job. Shit. Good night, people....