Typing Practice

fingers tapping on a keyboard, driven by a fibrous gelatinous structure 75% water.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

If humanity was a stock...

I would short it. In any successful enterprise all the pieces need to work together in a concerted and productive manner. The most effective entities exist in environments that favor their true nature, and thus they thrive by simply being true to their nature. But now look at our species. Would anyone admire our clever use of resources? Our lofty standards? Our harmonious efficiency?

The human child is programmed to receive affection from its family and learn through playing. But today the extended family is disbanded, the parents are at work, and siblings apathetic in their stupifying electronic world. Schools are impersonal robot factories that suck any creativity and curiosity out of young minds. Otherwise normal kids are pushed into existential bewilderment and emotional isolation at ever younger ages.

The teen and young adult is naturally charged with sexual energy and adventurous independence. But due to the demands of our ever more complex society, they must be incarcerated in school until they either assimilate or fail. In natural societies early teens couple and start families in sync with their natural urges and energy. In our civilized society they are kept frustrated and forced to find artificial outlets. At best they learn economic competition, entitlement and social cynicism. At worst they succumb to drugs, violence and indecency.

The full adult should be a paragon of strength and a beacon of wisdom. Yet all too often modern adults are still emotionally immature and physically depraved. They are ladened with emotional hang-ups, obesity and destructive habits. These pinnacles of humanity are often insecure, self-indulgent, and confused. They have yet to find the right path and cannot convincingly lead the youth.

Nature is not kind to the older adult. Having procreated and raised their offspring, elders are no longer needed. Instead of becoming a liability to the group, they become prey or succumb early to disease. But in our society the euphemistically titled "middle aged" hold most of the power and the wealth, under a pallor of greed and fear. Cold greed built up from jealousies and regrets after having played the game for so long. Fear from knowledge of their encroaching feebleness and mortality. Post-retirement they are unnatural and costly aberrations, the living dead.

These pessimistic characterizations are one-sided to make a point, but do possess the ring of truth. Of course, no one in their right mind wants to go back to the old, natural ways. From our cushy vantage they seem barbaric and defeatist. Yet with every year we drift further from our nature, and farther from our center. In nature, any creature so far from its normal environs would go extinct. "Fortunately" for us, our unique intelligence keeps us artificially prosperous beyond any natural design.

But how long can this contrived creature survive? How much would you pay for this bubbliest of all stocks?