Complex Numbers

This is It

I'm here at the tea house, just hanging out, pretending to write, pretending to be meaningful. I find there's a freedom in uselessness, a welcome detachment from all worries, cares, and responsibilities. A group of young men at the next table just toasted each other with their tea: "To a brighter tomorrow." Well, I've got news for you, kids:

This is it, baby.

This is the best of all possible worlds.

These are the good old days.

You want to see what a perfect world looks like? Look around you. It's never been better. It's not going to get better. The politicians with their lies, and the reactionaries with their brainless chatter, and the swimmers in the ocean of doubt - they'll tell you they're working for a better world, but I tell you that's impossible.

There's a pervasive fear, enhanced by the media, blown into form by the glassblowers with the hot air in Washington, but it'll never materialize. It's the fear that keeps us in line. Fear... and hope that somehow, these things can be solved.

They can't.

You think the world will end in 2012? Nonsense.

It's already ended.

Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.
-Leonard Cohen, "The Future"