Psychopathy of everyday life

Today I was thinking a lot. I was thinking hard because I was angry. I was in a philosophical mood, seeking reason in the world, and in the things I was taught as a child. Things most people somehow still believe in, fairy tales they somehow were taught to believe.

When I see the world, I see crime. All I see is crime, all I see is egoism, fear, self-interests in war and conflict with one another. I see very little of a true living together, I see very little wholistic sense, I see very little awareness of the whole and the world. I see very little realism. All I see is fear eating reality.

They teach you to behave when you are young. You are told what is wrong, and what is right. You are told not to steal, you are told to recycle, you are taught to love your neighbor and to leave the cat alone. You are punished when you lie, you are sanctioned when you destroy another’s property. You are told you are not the only person on this planet, and we should all find a way to live in peace. You are told to save some money for tomorrow, and you are told to be mindful of your old age and to grow old healthily. You are taught this is not the only time, and you are not the only one. You are told responsibility, you are made aware of the world, you are taught about the world.

So you grow up, thinking the bigger morale is about living together, is about caring for the future, is about more than your narrow self-preoccupations. You behave, and you think of tomorrow, you think of your neighbor, you care about the street kids in the slums in India. You care about human rights, you care about a healthy soil. You care about the planet, you care about the whales, you care about the jungle people, their religion and the strangeness of their tales.

The problem is, the more you grow up as you should, the more you become what you’ve been taught, the more you are offended by people going in the other direction. The people who make it, it seems, are not the ones who care about their sister, who give their lives for the hungry in Nepal. The ones who make it are not the ones carrying a Greenpeace sign in some environmental manifestation, the ones who make it are not the ones who squat in London for the end of war.

It seems all you are told, holds little substance, yet somehow you continue to believe. You hold on to your ideals, you hold on to the way you were brought up, you hold up your values of respect and sustainability. But in this world, if there is one truth it seems, it would be that you have to make it. You have to survive. You have to earn a living, you have to maintain your freedom, you have to work out for your health. Life is a struggle, a challenge to say the least.

And it is not because the world has so little to offer, it is not because nature is denying us of everything and is keeping us poor. It is not because inventions threaten our survival of tomorrow, it is not because in caring for another we only grow needy and empty in ourselves. It is because of the strange situation, that the ones keeping us exemplary and obedient are in general the worst of criminals themselves.

I am not talking about our parents, I am talking about the state, I am talking about the politicians, I am talking about the police, I am talking about corporate power and the system of legal corruption, crime and destruction.

For the establishment claims to fight crime, and to be at war with the maffia. The maffia, we all know, supports prostitution, drug traffic, murder and so on. But the establishment supports environmental pollution and destruction, alcoholism, extortion, war, torture, conspiracy and such. Is the establishment not another kind of a gang in a street war with the maffia ? And is it perhaps not even worse ?

We tell our children to be good, to be conscious and awake, yet when they risk seeing through the double standard, we bomb them with toys destroying nature, we bomb them with propaganda lies justifying our crimes, we bomb them with artificial and dead entertainment and fast food. We tell them about the world, nature, other people, and then we try to get them to agree, that the world should not be cared about, nature may be killed, and other people should be slaughtered.

What then, is reality ? What should we believe ? Which morale is the true fairy’s tale ?

I believe the question is that the state we find the world in when we are born, is already way to skewed, is already pre-occupied, as in a siege, the world is already besieged and occupied territory, in hands of all the psychopaths. There is a constant quarrel between the establishment and the underworld perhaps, but that is no more than a gang war. At best, they will all kill one another.

So where is the good, the real good person then to live ? Where is the place for him to be ? Is he not sandwiched between the crimes of the establishment, and the crimes of the rivaling gang ? He finds himself mugged on the street perhaps by some antisocial psychopath, and for the sake of the rich, he finds himself mugged in his home by taxes and confiscations. He finds himself raped in a park perhaps by some selfish pervert, but he finds himself raped in his home by the lies on television and the deceit in the newspaper stories. He may be killed by a loose gun on the street, but he may as well be killed in some foreign country fighting over who owns the wells of oil. Someone may deliberately try to poison his drink or his vegetables or steak, but corporations poison the air he breathes and the rivers he must drink from.

Where is man to live still safe from crime ? How many children are crying in their hearts, because reality is suffocating their ideals, because a beautiful world and a harmony of people seem to be childhood things, like the prince and the thorns, the glass slipper and the happy ever after. It seems if we are to grow up, we have to accept crime, as an institution, we have to accept injustice, as a structure, we have to consent to the withering of the world, as a law and a necessity. We must become adults, we will buy the plastic toy and the manipulated soy, we will drink the aspartame and insult our negro brother, we will let people starve on the streets and let whole continents be extorted, we will rape and torture for the signs of dollars, but we will tell our children to be good.

We will say that the law and the police protect man from crime, and we will say psychopaths do not deserve to live. But in the end, who knows any more ? Who can remain blind to the police killings, the war crimes, the environmental murders. Who will not hear that official armed forces are helping mercenaries kill off the jungle people who want to live free from poison and debris, from the oil spills in their river. Who need the fish that feeds them, who love the earth that needs them.

Which grown up child can still stand proud and say I am not the least a psychopath ? Which grown up child can say I stand up for my ideals ? Which grown up child can say I still care for a better world ? The ones who are imprisoned during demonstrations, the ones who are brought to disappear, the ones who are harassed and bullied, threatened and killed ? The ones who are ridiculed, as mankind laughs at its own ideals, and calls being honest and upright a childish error. You are wrong to believe still, you are stupid to stand up, you are dumb to ask for change.

For the world is a work of crime, it was crime that ruled the middle ages, is was crime that ruled colonization, it was crime that fed the growth of capitalistic industry. And it is crime, that is keeping the dollar signs alive.

Which side do you choose ? The police or the maffia ? It is like growing up in a ghetto, and having to choose one gang or the other. Either way, you are supposed to be a criminal, you are supposed to have no heart. And if you choose not to choose, if you don’t want to get involved, if you want to live for your ideals, you are threatened, you are ridiculed, you are thrown in jail and killed. It is the good that must die, it is belief, it is faith, it is true reason, it is the awake that must be hypnotized, the true that must believe the lies, it is the child that must be raped and killed and grow to be a man.

After all, we must not be strangers to the world.

If I wear a piercing and call myself an anarchist, it is not that I am a criminal, it is not an antisocial sign. If I act the way I do, it is because I am a child who believes in beauty, a man who believes in justice, a dreamer who believes in equality, a heart that longs for a sane tomorrow and a drop of blood that flows for beauty. I am not the wrong, is all I am saying, I am not wrong to choose myself and I am not alone in seeking truth and justice. We are many, but do we have the means ? All we have is a heart, all we have is the spirit, all we use is a flag, a sign, a djembé and a rattle, an ancient indian drum. All we say is we want more, we want the world as such, we want to live, and we want a life for real. All we see is no future, all we feel is hurt, every one of our philosophies is about anger, revolt, protest and a quest for peace. Will we ever find it ? Or are we stupid just to ask, are we dumb to even dream, are we naive ’cause we believe. How can we not fight ? How can we go back to sleep, how can we be content, how can the state of the world’s affairs bring us satisfaction ? Should we not be angry, should we not protest, should we not believe ? Should we be sedated ?

You may not call yourself an anarchist, or wear a piercing in your face, but do you not need us ? Would you not like to be one of us ? Do you not secretly feel some degree of love for us ? We are the cast away, we occupy the empty home, we roam from place to place, we have nowhere to be, we have no proper space. We are the meat within your sandwich, we are the center of the world, we are your heart that’s suffocated, we are your dreams of beauty beaten up and raped. We find only crime, we beget the police baton, we are handcuffed and locked up. We are labelled, we are punished, we are called evil even dangerous, it is said we are insane.

We should be corrected.

Will you help ?

Build tomorrow.