Humageddon: The State of Humanity in the Twenty-First Century

What have we become?

Humankind-- The planet’s biggest conglomerate. Complete with profits and losses, discrimination and injustices, creation and destruction, hostile takeovers and unsympathetic layoffs. It will continue to run this way until…it doesn’t. That is the way it works. That is the way it has always worked.

They say that mankind is doomed. There it is again-- that proverbial “they”. Always making prophetic statements of pessimism and acting like it is the first time these thoughts have been expressed. Doomed? Perhaps it is. Perhaps our lives are meaningless. Just thinking about free will vs. determinism seems to be the most useless thing one can do. As if it will change things one way or another.

I am sure that every generation spawns thinkers that come up with these ideas that seem so unique to us. Ideas that, in years gone by, may have led to a revolution. Every generation sees the downfall of humanity. The disease, the corruption, the injustice, the sloth, the fear. Every generation has its social heretics.

What have we become? Absolutely nothing that we haven’t already been.

We live in a society where bigger, faster, and stronger is mistaken for BETTER. We attain, collect, and inherit things every day but we rarely earn. We blame, accuse, and shun but we rarely carry the burden.

People are no longer willing to sacrifice anymore. Integrity has been traded in for commercial use. Would rather look good and lose than look bad and win. Would rather sell a lie for a gain, than give the truth to break even.

What have we become?

We are Super Wal-Mart. We are corrupt governments. We are bigots. We are McDonalds. We are used car salesmen. We are anti-gay and lesbian protesters. We are Microsoft. We are Bloods and Crips. We are drug lords. We are scam-artists. We are gun-runners. We are anti-American. We are anti-French. We are anti-anything that is different. We are yesterday. We are today. We are tomorrow.

Old concepts. New names.

People no longer care. Who knows, maybe this is something that has been going on since the dawn of time. Everything is much more clear in the past. Individuals whom met their fate with the hangman’s noose and those unfortunate souls whom were burned at the stake get societal reprieves centuries too late. Go figure.

Will this planet ever have another martyr? Another Joan of Arc? Another Guy Fawkes? The answer is, of course: certainly.

Except they will be met with an ignorance that far outweighs the heinousness of a martyrs death. They will be dismissed completely. No hangman’s noose this time. No burning at the stake either. Nothing at all. Nothing but the peoples' contempt for radical ideological societal change.

They say things aren’t like they used to be. There it is again-- that proverbial “they”. Always making prophetic statements of pessimism and acting like it is the first time these thoughts have been expressed. Well I say things are EXACTLY the way they used to be. Same street, different house. Only two things have changed: technology and perspective. The former is a natural progression of any culture, so of course, it isn’t what it used to be. If we wanted things to be the way they used to be then we should never have invented anything. Maybe that is what should have happened. Then at least it would all be Cro-Magnon mans fault.

What have we become? Precisely.

People no longer want to talk because people no longer want to listen. They wish to avoid anything that could cause pain, cause hardship, or cause their plans to be altered in any way. People abstain from vices, from confrontations, and from work. They abstain from competition, from emotions, and from uncharted pleasures. People abstain from food, from joy, from sex. I say the only thing that you are abstaining from is LIFE.

Change is good. Pain is good. Even fear can be good. But people would rather ignore the great wrongs that are going on than to jeopardize their already meaningless lives. They don’t understand that there are only so many layers of paint you can put on the weathered edifice. Sooner or later, it has to be torn down and rebuilt.

Mankind hasn’t taken some radical turn for the worse-- it is our perspective that has done that. We are doing what we have always done, and nothing more. Humanity will always exist…if we want it to. There will always be wars. There will always be injustices. There will always be life. There will always be death. But if we change our perspective just a hint; alter our views just a hair; we can still pay our respects to humanity.

Humanity isn’t gone. It isn’t missing and it isn’t lost. It can’t be. It is there, lurking in the shadows, hiding in our subconscious, like a forgotten toy ready to be made useful again. It is always in view yet we rarely see it. Always nearby yet we never touch it.

People no longer sacrifice.

People no longer sacrifice even for themselves. Complacency is the one disease that is completely controllable but we seem to make it appear as incurable as possible. I guess its just easier that way.

Random acts of kindness are treated like community service. As if people do such things because they have to fill a quota. “I opened 9 doors, gave 3 people spare change, and helped a blind person across the street. Is that tax deductible?”

I would rather be paid in smiles.

All is not lost though. I still see people trying to do good, even if that means doing wrong. I would rather do bad things for the right reasons than good things for the wrong reasons. I never did play by the rules much. The only rules I follow are the ones that allow me to sleep well at night.

I sleep like a baby.

Do not mistake ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ with humanity, because they are not what humanity is. That is courtesy and even that can be feigned, as people posting on the internet can attest. I would rather have some one pick me up after a fall and stay silent than to look at me and ask, “hey, man, you alright?” Yeah, buddy I am, and next time, why don’t you say something else completely arbitrary and devoid of sincerity. Asking me how the weather is would be just as inconsequential and monumentally less insulting.

The key to humanity isn’t just kindness. It isn’t doing good deeds and it isn’t saying 'I’m sorry'. What is the key? I have no idea. Even if I did, I couldn’t sit down and write about it. That would be like trying to sum up the universe in 250 words or less.

Just live.

Do something kind. Do something foolish. Do something regretful. Do something painful. Do something reckless. Do something terrifying. Do something genuine. Do something that you are proud of. Do something that shames you. Do something out of anger. Do something emotional. Do something instinctively. Do something childish. Do something futile. Do something human.

Cry a little. Laugh often. Think a lot.

People can choose to live how they want to live. They choose to act how they want to act and to do what they want to do. People choose to ignore or they choose to recognize.

What have we become? We have only become what we ourselves created.

I choose to act stupid and to get drunk. I choose to write poetry and sing in the shower. I choose to make huge mistakes but few regrets. I choose punish my body and to punish my mind. I choose to feel guilt when I shouldn’t and choose to feel shame when I should. I choose to do things that people will not like. I choose to do things that people find difficult to understand.

I choose…to be human.