Shit Begets Shit

Having come back from a leave of absence which was meant to recharge my batteries, refresh my brain cells, re-stock my store of ideas, and renew my spiritual and intellectual momentum, I find that I cannot think of anything to write about in this blog of mine which is worth writing about other than the fact that I cannot think of anything to write about in this blog of mine which is worth writing about! Or can I?

There are of course countless things to write about, but many of them are just plain boring, others are too weighty, others too trivial, others suck, and still others are too personal and would make me the laughing-stock of the world! If, that is, the whole world read my blog, but as it doesn't and as those few who do can be counted on the fingers of one hand, would it really matter? I suppose not, but standards must be maintained and pretences kept up. Self-delusion is everything when there's nothing else.

Out there in the worldwide Blogosphere countless blogs are being composed at this very moment, some interesting and entertaining and some, well, just plain trashy and an embarrassment to the author were he mature enough or intelligent enough to see it. But we are all free to write what we want and now to put it out there in the public sphere for the edification of whomever is unfortunate enough to stumble across it.

Everything exists in excess in this world... except good sense. The greatest excess in this world is of course people. And an excessive number of people create an excessive quantity of garbage in one form or another, be it tangible or intangible. The obvious consequence of excess is of course pollution, and this too is created in excess and planet-wide. As if the environment did not have its work cut out in digesting the phenomenal output of excrement (aka 'poo') produced and ejected by billions of human bottoms worldwide, an unavoidable concomitant of life, it also gets dumped on with all the rubbish and waste generated by human activities (i.e. the by-products of manufacturing etc). And so it gets double-dumped on! It's a bowl of shit whichever way you look at it.

We inhabit a world of exaggeration. We live beyond our means and we do things in excess. We have unrealistic expectations and make overblown demands and we cultivate oversensitivity and will ourselves to be offended so we can experience righteous indignation. We rail against our politicians but each one of us would probably be a thousand times worse if we were in a postion of political power, as evidenced by the ridiculous things people say when questioned in the street by some canvasser or pollster. God protect us from the common man! There's none worse than the so-called man in the street and his black-and-white views and sure-fire panaceas!

In truth the world is a confusing place. Confusing enough to drive us all mad if we could but contemplate it all. But thankfully we are by nature limited in what we can take in as part of our human consciousness and hence we are able to preserve our sanity and keep going. The world is only digestible in minute morsels and our minds can only handle snippets of the overall picture and the reality that's out there. We often choose to be aware of what we can usefully take on board in a viable way, and it is just as well, as it enables us to carry on psychologically and physically.

And yet we now live in a world of information overload. Thanks to our advanced communication technologies we are today bombarded by news and information from many quarters. Our ears are assailed by noise and our minds by information of one kind or another and in one form or another. It is a constant flow and it is much too much for us to absorb and process. There is no peace or tranquillity in our lives, no refuge from the barrage of information coming at us from a multiplicity of sources. And of course there is no escape from the mountain of obligations and debts that attach to us from just living our lives. We think we have free will and freedom of action and yet the reality is that we are so hemmed in by a myriad of restrictions and obligations that we often feel suffocated by the pressures placed upon us and the stresses that result. Our freedom is not curtailed by iron bars but our lives are constricted by an infinite number of rules and regulations, duties and obligations, and the burden of heavy debt which our modern living frequently demands of us.

The name of the beast is of course 'materialism'. Its vehicle is money. And its manifestation is goods. And we have so constructed the world that we need to have continual growth to have prosperity. How we make sense of that when the planet and its resources are finite and exhaustible is anyone's guess. We appear not to have spotted the absence of any logic in such a policy. So we worship at the altar of growth, which of course neatly brings us back to the theme of excess with which we started this commentary. In some mad sort of way everything seems to slot seamlessly into this jigsaw puzzle: materialism requires that we constantly acquire things, growth dictates that we constantly enlarge and expand, and money, the vehicle by which we stoke the fires of materialism and achieve growth, necessitates that we work to acquire it, and so we have the complete cycle, at least in simplified terms.

It is a much quoted saying that we know the price of everything and the value of nothing. But like most sayings, there is more than a grain of truth in it. The world has become a noisy place. There is no privacy any more. There is no real asylum. Communications are instant. Globalism is a reality. Money is the engine that drives all economies. Greed is the motivation that makes money work. Selfishness is the quality that allows materialism to thrive. Pollution is worldwide and its effects are changing the planet. Man's nefarious activities are threatening the survival of both plant and animal species. Human wickedness guarantees the continuance of crime. And a society that is becoming more and more amoral (if not immoral) ensures the recurrence of disasters brought on by shady dealings and dubious professional practices effected in the name of quick and easy gains, as typified by our banking systems in the recent past. The pieces are all in place and their adverse effects are constantly being felt.

That's all I'm going to say on this for now, little though it is, as I intend to return to this theme from time to time. If nothing else, it gives me the chance to have a good moan and to let off steam. It has many aspects to it, many facets, and it is an inexhaustible source of material to gripe about, rightly or wrongly. But one thing's for sure: the world's in a mess, the planet is in trouble, and humanity is in deep shit. Need I say more? Well perhaps just one thing: keep in mind that shit begets shit and that a huge proportion of the earth's biological resources or biomass has been recycled many times over, so that we can truly say that we who walk the planet today have come from.. well, how can I put this tactfully?... recycled shit! There, I've said it, and it's a sobering thought.