Opining Opulence

Opining Opulence

Why is it that the people who behave most like monkeys and gorillas,
are the same ones most opposed to the teachings of Evolution?

Never before has my American lifestyle offered so much extravagance and comfort. By international standards, I am spoiled beyond measure. I am overweight and never felt real hunger or thirst. I am often bored, always in search of more interesting, more stimulating forms of entertainment and amusement. I am satiated by almost every luxury imaginable, my intellect satisfied and challenged by advanced technologies of every description.

I want for nothing in terms of my physical existence. I am privileged to live better and with less fear, than over ninety percent of my fellow human beings. Hardly a day goes by when I do not, at one moment or another, feel grateful for my advantage-laden life. And appreciative for the relatively good health I enjoy. To great extent, I could not imagine a more fulfilling, fascinating life. One that even with added wealth, could only increase in degree but never quality.

And yet this is a story of supreme irony. A strange and unexpected price tag seems to accompany all the happiness and joy amid all this opulence and gratification. I am angry. More than angry. A constant, just-below-the-surface rage permeates my entire being. My privileged life has granted me the ability to view the world with judgmental eyes.

Although individuals can be beautiful, the collective whole of humanity exists as some perverse cesspool of writhing, agonizing, soulless souls. I am a proud misanthrope, prideful because I do not blind myself to the truth of things, the horrible truths that inspire both anger and a largely controlled level of insanity. I force myself to see the light, to imagine ends to long tunnels, but the darkness is so pervasive, so obvious, so looming that hope seems reserved for chumps, for the weak-minded who fool themselves into thinking that the 95% to 5% split are odds in their favor, rather than a countdown to Armageddon. I hear the ticking clock. I can feel the heavy hands of the clock moving closer to an hour of reckoning.

As beasts both dumb and oblivious, the dinosaurs never saw the doom that fell upon them. We are not so lucky as they. I suffer a road rage of life, of life’s highway, where tailgaters curry my impotent wrath and force me into further reclusiveness, further exile from my fellow travelers.

As regards the vital sources for all I hold near and dear, to which I should be forever grateful, I feel only contempt and revulsion. We are a pathetic and pitiful accident of Darwin's laws of natural selection, whose brief foray on Earth shall be remembered only for its plasticine byproducts, the empty husks of which litter landfills and graveyards alike.

Yes, I am angry; I’m totally, royally pissed off. And don’t be misled by my jovial outbursts of laughter. I am mad as hell, as we all should be, and none of us should take it anymore.