Emotion Sickness

I'm always interested in the paradoxical nature of the world. Of course, a large-scale system of infinite variability would bring with it an inherent sense of contradiction, but by observation alone, I find that nothing really prepares me for the caveats of this world - of this life.

I'm talking about the fact that the world we live in is some how filled with emptiness. The irony of that statement notwithstanding, we've somehow managed to evolve (as a society) into one that's teeming with stuff and yet possessive of nothing. Shells, empty of character; boxes, containing only space and air. Nothing that we yearn for - and surely nothing that we strive for - seems to matter, inasmuch as to matter makes sense philosophically.

It's an idea easily summarized by Fight Club, in my opinion. In particular, Tyler's vision of a post-apocalyptic version of the once-bubbling metropolis. I always read articles online that categorize Palahniuk's narrative as one of nihilism and misanthropy. Critics seem to overlook the fact that Durden's view of tomorrow is, ultimately, a Utopian one: In a society like that, all of the bitchy, superficial assholes whose babbling I despise would be forced to either acquire some substance or to become obsolete.

And what's so bad about that?

Imagine a world where appearances are no longer heralded: Imagine a world where fad diets and trendy clothes and popular music no longer exist: Imagine a world where we as individuals could finally start over and begin working towards a new Renaissance with people who actually give half a shit. Just imagine.

In a way, there's almost nothing more optimistic than believing that society could somehow undo all the shitty things it's responsible for and could just awaken in the midst of some kind of neo-Enlightenment. Optimism, to me, is envisioning a world free of people who want to be Heidi Klum because she's hot or Mary Kate Olson because she's skinny: A world free from the blemish of people wanting to be Bill Gates because he's rich or wanting to starve so they can look like the model on the cover of this month's cover of GQ magazine. I'm optimistic enough to believe that the world could (again?) be filled with people who exist without needing to idolize materialism and superficiality. Do you hear that, world? Tomorrow, you could be rid of people worshiping the golden calf and be swarming, instead, with people who don't give preference to appearance over substance.

The key, of course, is this: Everything - the here and now - has to be completely destroyed.

The entire world as we know it has become the tower of Babel: We're building higher and higher, but we're not reaching for anything. Any- and everything we do to "repair" today - tomorrow - our society - will be like patching the cracked hull of a deep-sea submarine: It'll be a fix until either we surface - we reach dry land, we realize the error of our ways, and we maintain lucidity until we fuck ourselves again later - or until we continue being the same trivial, unsubstantiated society we have been for at least 200 years Either way, it's all going down, man.

And so, as a result, I present to you my view of the world.

In the world that I see: There's an uninhabited floating ball in the galaxy with an iron core and a gnarly atmosphere that's just waiting to be infused with some kind of evolving microcosm. There's a 50/50 chance that my world will evolve into something different than this world has; if it doesn't, then we can always start over, and if it does, well....