Some Things that I Sometimes Think Regardless of What I Believe
It starts with your parents banning you from eating in front of the TV. That is the first step. Pointless and random acts of obedience. So small that they are imperceptible even to the person performing them. They do not mean anything by it, they are just subconsciously training you to be neither a harm to yourself or others.
We are just pack animals. We are the wildebeest of Sahara grasslands running scattered from the might of the earth. Great lions of greed and gluttony bare down on the heels of the young and the old in equal measures, though their frailties leave the spoils unprotected for the ruthless in the middle, the ones who can afford to drown their gouged and raw self-esteem with diamonds and gold. CEO’s, big business partners, old men who have pissed on trees down Bohemian Grove. But all they are is King of the Herd. No one is supposed to care about the herd.
We are like the ones that got away. We built around us a giant fortress of stuff like a five-year-old kid. Getting more joy out of packaging boxes than toys on Christmas day. But as you get older the toys get bigger, more expensive, and dangerous. Everything takes on a monetary value. A shimmering gold hue. The difference between living outside or inside.
Put any billionaire in a one-on-one situation with even the most mediocre of the worlds predators and they are going to lose. Sure, anyone can get eaten by a shark or tripped off a cliff by a mischievous giraffe using its neck as a trip wire. But most of them are getting chased out the door by your basic household pet. A dog, or a feisty cat, caught on a bad day and cornered. A gecko that has been starved off the grasshoppers, a Japanese fighting fish punching way over its weight category, there is one woman who had a monkey that ripped another woman’s face just clean off. Down to the bone.
Conforming to the idea of becoming organised prey was step one in human evolution. We were mistakenly given self-esteem. Non-predatory animals are not supposed to feel self-esteem. We are supposed to feel hunger, arousal, and fear but with our fight or flight mode heavily tuned on flight. Jumping at every single noise and throwing trayed bakery products into the air like an unfortunate parent whose child has just got into Tiktok pranks.
Our self-esteem has tricked us into thinking that we are winning. You even see some people who clearly think they have already won. Lying on the ground, sweating it out, tin foil cloak flapping lazily in the boiling sun. We scorched the earth like no prey that has ever come before us. Imagine plankton having the foresight to organise themselves like this. They honestly stand zero chance of even doing half of the things that we are doing. But still, you get all these people trying to swim all night like sharks. You’re not sharks. You are sheep in wolves clothing. You’re a three-bird roast. That is a bid in a bird inside another bird. Not only are you at the mercy of even the most miniscule of changes of pressure in the earth’s atmosphere, you also, and daily, fall victim to overwhelming pressure from your very own brain.
But then again, you would tell yourself that.
