This post takes its title from a Dropkick Murphys song, that goes
You gotta dig real deep for the good stuff
The good stuff that keeps us alive.
I was listening to that lately, and it struck me how very simple it all is, and how we choose to complicate it. We've made getting offended and disagreeing the de jour art form, forgetting meanwhile one simple truth -- getting upset is easy. It may well be the easiest emotion known to us. Becoming angry. Yelling at others. Blaming. Hitting, even. We're good at that, we always were. Ever since the cave days. Which makes it all the more surprising we're still so in awe of it.
You'd think we would've gotten over this sentiment by now. Yes, it's easy to get upset. Now more so than ever. Not to be mistook here, anger and division has always been easier and closer to hand than we'd like to admit. The crucial difference is before, we were forced to live and work together. The need for community and interpersonal help outweighed the appeal of division.
But now, now we've created a world in which community is no longer an imperative, but one among several options. Well, two, really. Community and isolation. However, we're at a point where the vast majority chooses isolation. The left more so, because they're more driven by hate and derision of the outgroup (be it Trump supporters, anti-vaxxers, whatever else) than love of their own in-group (you rarely hear them talk up Biden's valor as a president for instance). But the right, as well. Everyone, really. We choose to isolate ourselves because thanks in large part to technology we can afford to live without our fellow man. We don't need real friends. We can find a common cause to hate on with strangers on the Internet, and that's infinitely more satisfying.
Except no, it never will be. It's the illusion of satisfaction that makes us, in truth, so miserable, and causes us to turn on the very neighbors we're supposed to be helping. Me and religion don't go very far, but I do think the essence of our being on this earth is to "love our neighbor".
What no one tells you about that, though, is that it's bleeding hard. Digging for the good stuff is hard work. So is fighting for the good, and the love, and all the precious things that you're lucky enough to experience. It's a lot harder than hating. Hating is easy. So is being angry, as we just established. So is raining blows on your fellow man. Sparing him, that's always been the sign of a higher moral cut, and I fear we may be losing that type of cut from our collective consciousness. Not yet from our DNA, that's harder to alter, and I do like to think the instinct to love, and to help continues to outweigh the need to denigrate and hurt.
But it won't forever. In enough generations of hate, it will become our preferred option. Our default setting. And then we'll truly be screwed, because if we can't fight for the good and the love in us when that's the default, imagine how hard it will get when it's not. At the rate we're going, love may one day stop being our initial impulse.
Of course, it's always easiest if we blame the "other party". It was the fault of the people who wouldn't get the shot. On the other side of the barricade, it was the fault of the sheeple who believed everything they were told. It was the fault of the people who voted for Trump. Or who trusted a corrupt, sadistic government to treat their votes with dignity and respect. It's always the other's fault until you realize...
...there is no other.
And I'm sorry to say, but as long as we continue thinking that way, they win. That's the problem. We all think we're the good guy in our own story. Leftists who wail about Republicans every chance they get do really think they're good people. So do Republicans who are trying to save their bleeding country. The so-called conspiracy theorists are the ones keeping our world rolling by not trusting the government, and the "sheeple" are the good guys for not trusting the conspiracy theorists.
As long as we're not all the good guy, sad to say, we're all the bad guy. It really is that easy. Sure, my own intelligence and self-pat on the back may comfort me for tonight, but at the end of the day, it brings the world no closer to peace, or an age of heightened consciousness. And that's exactly what they want, for us to each think we are the good guy.
By "they", of course, I mean the evil politicians and filthy rich bastards who are truly in charge of this world.
And that's not Trump. It's the person who made sure everyone had an opinion about the guy.
It's not Bill Gates, either, I don't think. That guy, while I'm sure he's quite an asshole himself, seems to be the focus of far too much public attention to wield any real power.
Those are the other, and the people we should be riling against. Not our neighbors, or friends. Not our teachers, and coworkers, and certainly not our families.
This right here, something you think is yet to come, already plays out really. Not as extremely in your region maybe, but just as extremely in mine. Although, love still prevails somewhat but it's still playing out.
Your last sentence is so paramount right now if we're ever going to succeed as a nation. We preach almost daily on Twitter saying in other words;
The others aren't just filthy rich, they're insanely rich thieving and heartlessly corrupt politicians and their cronies getting rich off the back of the poor, literally. (Out of 216m, 133m are poor, see how lucrative the business is huh! 🇳🇬)
Hmm. I hope we realise.