the paradox of our age
Equilibrium is defined as a condition in which all acting influences are canceled by others, resulting in a stable, balanced, or unchanging system. Knowing that, we can begin this theory of mine by thanking Darwin for his excellent work in the upheaval of his theory of evolution. Darwin may have started out as an uber religious guy, but even he couldn't deny the impeccability of science.
Human beings consider themselves to be the pinnacle of evolution, the most complex and intellectually advanced over all else coexisting in this planet. Hell, we do have opposable thumbs after all. But are we cocky enough to believe that the bill stops here, with us? Our behaviors say yes. We are about as decadent as the Romans, not to mention wasteful and arrogant, carrying out a lifestyle that rallys around a doomed future. We've figured out how to control just about everything but the weather, and have a complete and utter disregard for everything that doesn't directly benefit us. Was it always this way? Let us analyze this.
A while back I attempted selling some old clothes to one of those trendy vintage clothing stores. This store is located by the beach so you certainly won't find good parking anywhere you wish. In turn, my friend and I ended up carrying heaps of clothing filled trash bags for a few blocks and I was genious enough to drag my trashbag of clothes on the ground. Of course it punctured a huge hole in the bag. So since the people at the clothing store are bitches and didn't take even half of what I brought in, I got stuck with all the punctured trashbags full of rejected clothing. Luckily my friend proposed to bring her truck around front, where I could just wait on the street with the bags. As I was leaning up against the stucco walls of the clothing store, trying not to look completely obvious with about 3 industrial sized garbage bags in front of me, I decided to pass the time by observing the passerby's. I noticed two girls walking past and heard a snippet of their conversation, which was enough to send me reeling into deep thought. One of them was explaining her reasoning for dating a guy, as she states, "what I really liked about him was that he bought me stuff." These words were uttered from her materialistic lips as she passed me, so I immediately look over at her and I notice that she has one of the tightest asses I've ever seen. I'm no homo, but I call it like I see it. A stupendous ass is a stupendous ass.
This got me thinking. That stupendous ass of hers probably conditioned her behavior. Finding guys who "buy you stuff" is a lot easier when you have ass. I pose the age old chicken or the egg question: what came first, her ass or her pettyness? Did she become petty because she has ass and knows it, or was she always shallow, regardless of her ass, which only exacerbated her pettyness? I tend to think that her personality was shaped by her external goods. By inheriting the trait of "good ass", this young lady is able to leach off of men and not put much stress on her brain; she doesn't really need it. This works for her. For all those other people out there who are little more shabby looking, they need to tap into their brain function a bit more and use charisma and intelligence to get them places. This is not to say that you can't have ass and brains, but the previous example helps prove my point.
And in ties the whole equilibrium effect. In the past, animals evolved due to a need to adapt to their environment, all the while leaving viable offspring who could also thrive and further adapt. Now the human is so complex and so intellectually advanced, that at times it may seem that in this parallel universe, there's nowhere to go but down, while our societal structure complexity continues to move upward. Although, I sometimes feel that humans are devolving, but that's probably because I hang out at places where dumb people go, i.e. bars.
I won't discredit the human race, however, because we've constructed some amazing things. The technology that we've engineered is beyond me, and it's not about "fitter and stronger" anymore, because we've invented ways to overcome most handicap. The world of medicine isn't infallible, but we've come a long way from bleeding people with leaches and all that other hocus pocus. Because of our intellectual capacity, we ditched the hunter-gatherer life and constructed an empire from nothing, all in an effort to make our lives more convenient. It's quite brilliant how we've mapped it all out, but ironically everything we've worked to achieve may very well bring our distruction. For instance, all those gadgets they sell on those infomercials are intended to make our lives easier. Sure it's great, but at what cost? Eventually all that shit is going to end up in a landfill somewhere. Yet the real issue is, with all the devices and pills that are put on the market to help us better our lives and ourselves, there is an onslaught of social problems.
Human beings consider themselves to be the pinnacle of evolution, the most complex and intellectually advanced over all else coexisting in this planet. Hell, we do have opposable thumbs after all. But are we cocky enough to believe that the bill stops here, with us? Our behaviors say yes. We are about as decadent as the Romans, not to mention wasteful and arrogant, carrying out a lifestyle that rallys around a doomed future. We've figured out how to control just about everything but the weather, and have a complete and utter disregard for everything that doesn't directly benefit us. Was it always this way? Let us analyze this.
A while back I attempted selling some old clothes to one of those trendy vintage clothing stores. This store is located by the beach so you certainly won't find good parking anywhere you wish. In turn, my friend and I ended up carrying heaps of clothing filled trash bags for a few blocks and I was genious enough to drag my trashbag of clothes on the ground. Of course it punctured a huge hole in the bag. So since the people at the clothing store are bitches and didn't take even half of what I brought in, I got stuck with all the punctured trashbags full of rejected clothing. Luckily my friend proposed to bring her truck around front, where I could just wait on the street with the bags. As I was leaning up against the stucco walls of the clothing store, trying not to look completely obvious with about 3 industrial sized garbage bags in front of me, I decided to pass the time by observing the passerby's. I noticed two girls walking past and heard a snippet of their conversation, which was enough to send me reeling into deep thought. One of them was explaining her reasoning for dating a guy, as she states, "what I really liked about him was that he bought me stuff." These words were uttered from her materialistic lips as she passed me, so I immediately look over at her and I notice that she has one of the tightest asses I've ever seen. I'm no homo, but I call it like I see it. A stupendous ass is a stupendous ass.
This got me thinking. That stupendous ass of hers probably conditioned her behavior. Finding guys who "buy you stuff" is a lot easier when you have ass. I pose the age old chicken or the egg question: what came first, her ass or her pettyness? Did she become petty because she has ass and knows it, or was she always shallow, regardless of her ass, which only exacerbated her pettyness? I tend to think that her personality was shaped by her external goods. By inheriting the trait of "good ass", this young lady is able to leach off of men and not put much stress on her brain; she doesn't really need it. This works for her. For all those other people out there who are little more shabby looking, they need to tap into their brain function a bit more and use charisma and intelligence to get them places. This is not to say that you can't have ass and brains, but the previous example helps prove my point.
And in ties the whole equilibrium effect. In the past, animals evolved due to a need to adapt to their environment, all the while leaving viable offspring who could also thrive and further adapt. Now the human is so complex and so intellectually advanced, that at times it may seem that in this parallel universe, there's nowhere to go but down, while our societal structure complexity continues to move upward. Although, I sometimes feel that humans are devolving, but that's probably because I hang out at places where dumb people go, i.e. bars.
I won't discredit the human race, however, because we've constructed some amazing things. The technology that we've engineered is beyond me, and it's not about "fitter and stronger" anymore, because we've invented ways to overcome most handicap. The world of medicine isn't infallible, but we've come a long way from bleeding people with leaches and all that other hocus pocus. Because of our intellectual capacity, we ditched the hunter-gatherer life and constructed an empire from nothing, all in an effort to make our lives more convenient. It's quite brilliant how we've mapped it all out, but ironically everything we've worked to achieve may very well bring our distruction. For instance, all those gadgets they sell on those infomercials are intended to make our lives easier. Sure it's great, but at what cost? Eventually all that shit is going to end up in a landfill somewhere. Yet the real issue is, with all the devices and pills that are put on the market to help us better our lives and ourselves, there is an onslaught of social problems.
We are continually discovering new disorders in people and there are continually new medications on the market to treat them (which have about ten side-effects a pop, all in exchange for curing your ailment. If your original At this point you must ask yourself which you prefer: rectal bleeding or nasal ?) How did these disorders evolve? It has to balance out somehow. The system, being society, must remain stable and balanced. When life was considered to be primitive, tribes or families gathered merely what they needed for the day and lived in a simple and relatively harmonic coexistence. Each member of the family unit contributed to the greater good of the group in an equal fashion. Families grew size-wise only in accordance with what was sustainable for the tribe, guaranteeing that everyone would be able to survive on what was available within their environment. Then with the coming of the agricultural revolution came mass productivity and output, and the eventual rise of the labor process. Here's where everything goes to hell.
According to Engels, "The hand is not only the organ of labor, it is also the product of labor." This implies that human anatomy evolved according to the "needs" of the labor process. Thus improvements in tools and products used to master the environment meant more complex forms of communication, and the advancement of our physical complexity. Our ability to maximize efficiency and output was inevitable, and doesn't mean that we're greedy or evil; it's our ability to think critically that sets us apart from all other animals. But what became the turning point for our society, which further distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom, came when production for use was replaced by production for exchange, and eventually for profit. With this came the rise of class society, and eventually, inequality.
Once production became a means of profit, communities were able to grow and flourish. This growth occurred exclusively within communities that were producing the most, so it's fair to say that not everyone was able to flourish in an equal fashion. Social complexity, communities and surplus grew quite steadily, but the distribution of this wealth was unequal, and eventually a small number of men began to rise above the rest in terms of wealth and power. And so, sexism and oppression began. Since agriculture relies heavily on physical labor, men were the ones who pretty much had the upper hand in terms of running the show. The new purpose of the woman? Solely for reproduction. After all, there was a need for an extra set of hands (or ten) on the farm. How else would you maximize output, surplus and further attain wealth? Great news, we've managed to transform our families into an economic unit of consumption. That's a milestone in the history in the human race, if I ever heard one.
So in essence, something has got to give. Though we've advanced in many ways, we've exchanged a harmonic balance that allowed sustainability of human and animal populations in accordance with the environment. We've sacraficed tolerance, equality, mental health and begun an overall degradation of self, all in attempts to "live better." Ironic isn't it? How long are we going to be able to keep up our existence, as is? I've heard as little as 100 years. Who really knows? And what are we to do? Accept our fate and be logged in the books as a historical period along with the dinosaurs? I cannot deny that it's tempting to throw in the towel and say "Fuck it, I'm going to just live for today. We're screwed anyway." It's true that one person can't save the world, but one person can surely make an impact. This doesn't even mean that we must individualy lead some kind of crusade promoting the salvation of the earth. The earth is going to be just fine. It's the people within it that will be done for. Change needs to take place within ourselves, and this was we can make a significant impact. The first place to start is within our families. Step one basically requires us to redefine our idea of success.
A measure of success up until now has been aligned directly with profit, wealth and social status. Somewhere along the way we lost touch with what really mattered, which I feel to be relationships, personal enrichment, knowledge, love and respect.
According to Engels, "The hand is not only the organ of labor, it is also the product of labor." This implies that human anatomy evolved according to the "needs" of the labor process. Thus improvements in tools and products used to master the environment meant more complex forms of communication, and the advancement of our physical complexity. Our ability to maximize efficiency and output was inevitable, and doesn't mean that we're greedy or evil; it's our ability to think critically that sets us apart from all other animals. But what became the turning point for our society, which further distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom, came when production for use was replaced by production for exchange, and eventually for profit. With this came the rise of class society, and eventually, inequality.
Once production became a means of profit, communities were able to grow and flourish. This growth occurred exclusively within communities that were producing the most, so it's fair to say that not everyone was able to flourish in an equal fashion. Social complexity, communities and surplus grew quite steadily, but the distribution of this wealth was unequal, and eventually a small number of men began to rise above the rest in terms of wealth and power. And so, sexism and oppression began. Since agriculture relies heavily on physical labor, men were the ones who pretty much had the upper hand in terms of running the show. The new purpose of the woman? Solely for reproduction. After all, there was a need for an extra set of hands (or ten) on the farm. How else would you maximize output, surplus and further attain wealth? Great news, we've managed to transform our families into an economic unit of consumption. That's a milestone in the history in the human race, if I ever heard one.
So in essence, something has got to give. Though we've advanced in many ways, we've exchanged a harmonic balance that allowed sustainability of human and animal populations in accordance with the environment. We've sacraficed tolerance, equality, mental health and begun an overall degradation of self, all in attempts to "live better." Ironic isn't it? How long are we going to be able to keep up our existence, as is? I've heard as little as 100 years. Who really knows? And what are we to do? Accept our fate and be logged in the books as a historical period along with the dinosaurs? I cannot deny that it's tempting to throw in the towel and say "Fuck it, I'm going to just live for today. We're screwed anyway." It's true that one person can't save the world, but one person can surely make an impact. This doesn't even mean that we must individualy lead some kind of crusade promoting the salvation of the earth. The earth is going to be just fine. It's the people within it that will be done for. Change needs to take place within ourselves, and this was we can make a significant impact. The first place to start is within our families. Step one basically requires us to redefine our idea of success.
A measure of success up until now has been aligned directly with profit, wealth and social status. Somewhere along the way we lost touch with what really mattered, which I feel to be relationships, personal enrichment, knowledge, love and respect.
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