Colorless Green Ideas

Futile Observations of a Complacent Statistic

I am a part of the problem. That's the last allegation that I would ever deny. I buy corporate brands, I spend exorbitant amounts of money on materialistic excess; things like imported beer and CDs. Over the course of my life I have built countless loving and long-lasting relationships with inanimate possessions that will not cry when I'm dead.

I know it's wrong, but I still do it. The little pang of guilt I feel let's me know that my conscience is still alive.

The fact that the chickens lived horrble, disease-ridden and extremely short lives stuffed into cages too small to turn around in hardly matters when they are presented to me in an attractive, colorful package and wearing coats of battered, triple-thick skin.

I know it's wrong, but I'll still salivate while waiting in line for that cheap and easy fix.

Like most of my generation, my heart is in the right place, while my head rests quite complacently in the clouds. I use it to regurgitate information, and to recall certain points in my life that make me feel better about who I am. I try to black out the bad parts. After all, every human being must live in denial to achieve true happiness. Like everybody else, I use it to tell myself that sooner or later everything will be alright.

I use it to study politics and journalism. Two aspects of life that the majority of people take for granted and do not understand ( and would rather it stay that way ). I can at least find solace in the fact that, despite being shallow, materialistic, and living only in the short term, I am learning the truth about the world and those who run it.

Unfortunately, people never react well to having the truth presented to them, as it rarely coincides with the perfect, happy fantasy world that corporate media has constructed for them. Our lives are often guided by lies and misperception. We are socialized to strive for the intangible. The foreign policy of the world's only superpower is driven by lies and misperception. What place does truth have in a world such as this, where ignorance truly is bliss? Why think for ourselves, when everything we need to know is presented to us on a time and cost-efficient silver platter?

Each and every year when I walk these city streets the buildings get taller. Grey steel and girders replace cerulean skies. Urban development executives call it a 'modern, stylized' beauty, and regard each vulgar obstruction as a monument to human creativity and our overwhelming 'success' as a species. But doesn't anyone else miss picking shapes out of the clouds?

At the top of each temple sits a committee of man-made gods, sitting in leather high-back chairs, consuming chinese food, and discussing how to further expand their influence. Lately they've been paying teenagers to turn themselves into human billboards - in a very literal sense - by having corporate logos tattooed on their skin. Isn't that an interesting concept? Brand-name skin. Designer flesh. "And next up we have a beautiful pin-striped epidermis from Giorgio Armani's autumn line"

I don't know about you, but when I think of a city of gods, I picture Athens or Babylon. Not New York. Not Washington. Not Halifax.

As I sit here and write, the naked trees across the street shiver in the cold and wind. Gentle snow drifts carelessly to the ground. A city bus floats by, carrying busy people to important destinations. And all the while, the world keeps turning, ignorance proliferates, and money keeps changing hands. More people build more walls. Some figurative, some literal, all inhibiting.

Soon enough, it will be time for me to catch my bus.

But I'm not yet completely lost.

The sun came up today. It was beautiful. It painted the world in a glorious orange hue, and made the sea sparkle as if it were made of gold. Where were you?

posted by Sylpheed @ 3:31 PM