It’s worth it

There are a lot of people who talk about how fuck things are. Actually, Coronel Friggs of American Beauty used to say “This world is going to hell!”. Of course, that was an imitation of many people who thinks and talks like him: we were better off in the past, our moral values have gone to hell, the end is near, is not worth it to bring more kids into the world, things go worse every day, etc, etc. As much as a fan I am of pessimism, I cannot agree. I cannot believe that all is lost, that there is no future and all is lost, or the pop version, the apocalypses or the “end of times” is near; “judgment day” or “the second coming” is ahead (Yeah, I wish! The second one is always better!), or whatever you want to call it. Oh yeah, the God who never cared will suddenly have a conscience attack and even do something as a judge figure! If you ask me I’ll say that’s a lot of Hollywood crap. Of course, we were raise in a continuous OD of Hollywood so, what else could we expect but a grand finale? Now in 3-D and Blue Disc!!

I refuse to think in those terms. In fact, anyone who agrees is taking away any reason to be here, to live, to form part of this diverse community we call humanity (agency….for all you postmodern academics). What else do we have then? The final judgement? Let’s assume that is so. Ok, on what grounds? Judged for what exactly? We have only begun to screw things up! Or maybe we have already screwed up a lot, but not so much that we are the ones to get to pay the check! What? Are we supposed to pay for an entire humanity of fuck-ups? If that is so, THAT’s why this is fucked-up!

But I am missing the point, according to these people, the world is fucked right here and now, so that means the end is near, right? We see it every day; guys killing their family members, dark wars because of drugs, thieves, child abuse, child prostitution, prostitution, incest, corruption, imperialism, murders, rapes and the list goes on and on. And I ask, is that new?! When was it that things were not as fucked?! Stop fooling yourself, those good old days are just a fragment of your imagination, something that never existed. If we know of all our wrong doings, is because of mass-media. Today we have so much information (and disinformation) at our disposal that in they need in the US a number of screens within the TV screen to bombard the audience with, well, “information”. However, there’s a reality inside all that info; it’s not that we are approaching the end of times, we are just aware about our actions. In fact, we have done shitty things since the start of what we so wrong called civilization. If you are one of those who think that the world is worst than ever, ask yourself if that idea is not itself a product of excess of information instead of the reality that…we have always been as capable of doing “bad” things, as well as “good” things (that division remains totally arbitrary because, who can define what is good and bad?). Is the fucking yin-yan baby! Oh, you don’t buy it? Do me a favor and read The Iliad so you learn or remember about when we have bloody wars for the sake of a lady, where the carriages slipped among human parts and a bunch of blood. Read any Greek tragedy, where sons fucked their mommies and took out their eyes out of their sockets afterwards. What the fuck?! Go and read The Bible! There you will not only find how the “son of god” is lynched because his daddy wanted so (awesome family values in that book!), but women and children massacred by divine order, whipping out entire groups. Remember the millenary Crusades war, where thousands of human were massacred because of religion, or the witch hunting in America, where if you were accuse as such, it was burn, baby burn for you! Remember the Holocaust, or the Spanish Civil War, or the Nuclear Bomb in Japan where millions died with no reason, and among them, children, mothers, fathers, everything but cockroaches….it wasn’t until the Vietnam War that we got to see our horrors live in TV. Since then, everyone likes to repeat everything is going worse and worse every day.

I’m not one of those who will say to you “technology will set us free”. This is no not a sci-fi novel. On the contrary, I think this entire technology disable us to a certain point. Being bombarded with so much “info” means we are distracted of doing anything about it. In fact, the possibility of doing something seems something of a sci-fi novel itself; so far way from us, as far as that galaxy from Star Wars, that it’s easier to say that the end is near than to do something about it.

However, we forget that that among our grotesque nature (no, we are not pure and good because those are moral values created by humans) and how fuck-up we have left the planet to please the indulgence of one or two millionaires, we have made some progress. So the bad shit is not something new, but know we know more about it, which didn’t happened before unless you could read (and they are a lot of people who can’t read even today) or was entertained in the times of oral epics. Even when it’s true that many people who could have change something didn’t, that doesn’t mean we are doomed and that there’s nothing to be done, or even all that crap about the end of the world. Yes, the world will end someday, but not because someone is coming. Face it, the planet has an expiration date after all. Even if that day finally comes or if we rush that end, is entirely up to us, but let us not settle with a “this is fuck-up and there’s nothing to be done”…let’s do something.