Ode to Desperation

It is from desperation I attempt to be a writer. It is from this moment of sitting in a loud, crowded public Tesco Lotus food court and watching the movements, robotic and trained by years of repetition, of the staff, the table cleaners, the cooks, and even the patrons. I feel seasick watching their daily motions of formulated responses; cells of a machine that operate according to lifelong consumer programming. 

I am just another, but I must believe for my own sanity, that I can break free; if only in my mind, in my words, in my expression. Free from the complete and utter ridiculousness of this script we all follow, like rats of the pied piper. 

And, when the pied piper wasn't paid? After he had eradicated the infestation of Hamelin, after that, when he was denied payment... he kidnapped 130 children as revenge. None were ever seen or heard from again. That got dark, yet I can not stop the setting of the sun.

The facts. Facts of the matter. There is nothing to matter. Madness creeps around the edges like fake news in the daily report. Cognitive dissonance free falls me down the rabbit hole and I can not stop the fall. The free fall is the verb. The facts. Is all the news fake?

We don't know the facts. We are navigating a world in which we desperately cling to any semblance of drifting truth, anything that seems not to have been tainted by some madman, or worse, by a system that has nothing to do with man, mad or not.

It is quite obvious we are being manipulated against each other. Yet, to let go of our trust in our own hand fed, confidently assured contradicting Truth is to let go of our view of the world. To let go of a grounded perspective. Where are we in this cosmos if we have no point of reference any longer? Who is the enemy? Why is there any enemy at all?

Our enemy is progress. We have the behemoth corporations barreling through society as a freight train of next day packages that have a lower absolute cost each shopping cycle but a higher comparative cost each wage to inflation calculation. Merry Christmas.

Not only do we buy shit we don't need to distract from the fact that this is our life... and it's ending one second at a time, but we buy to perform the rote actions of capitalistic tradition. We pray in the church of wealth and sacrifice to the god Economy. The prayers are always "For More" and the sacrifice is the truth; telling each other, and ourselves, we are doing better than before. Orwell whispers an inaudible lament from the grave... 

And each day we buy a little more we have a little less; a little less confidence in our government, a little less hope for a humanity of the future that does not destroy itself, a little less cheer, health, comfort, relief, and love. Each day, a little less than the day before.

I am desperate not to be an actor on this stage that is the shadow archetype of the audience reflection. I am desperate to be all the things that desperation does not embody. I am desperate to write myself out of this story, out of this crowded Tesco Lotus, away from this crumbling society, to write myself an escape from this failing global ecological disaster... and, into another story altogether.