187 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
187 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
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= F.U.C.K. - Fucked Up College Kids - Born Jan. 24th, 1993 - F.U.C.K. =
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Cynictology
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Are you in a good mood? Happy? Then stay that way. Stop reading. Go away.
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Everyone else, join me for a moment.
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I was reading a review tonight for a book. The basic premise was that a
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group of people, if they worked together, could indeed form a happy,
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productive, and functional utopian society. My first reaction was to
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scoff. Still, the last point the reviewer made stuck with me. It was
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something to the effect that mood of text was catchy. That brought me to
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thought.
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Could it be as simple as that? Could just being happier, being more
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optimistic, breed hope? Bring about positive change? Could it in fact
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make the world a better place? As simplistic and impossible as the notion
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was, I began to see it had merit. It had truth.
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At that moment, the thought itself became too much to bear. That for a
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moment I comprehended the fact the salvation of this county, the world,
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mankind, and more importantly, ourselves, was well within all our grasps.
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That if we willed it, it could be. Now it is your turn to scoff. This
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theory of sunshine blowing freely up the collective consciousness's skirt
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could make the world a happy-go-lucky place we could be happy to live in is
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even remotely credible. I would do the same, had I not thought it myself.
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Then again, just perhaps, it validates the theory as a fact. That since we
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are incapable of comprehending it, we propetuate the misery the world is in.
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Isn't that, and hasn't that, been the problem all along? When has the
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world as a whole been optimistic about the state and fate of mankind?
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There have been times of prosperity, to be sure. There are very notable
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moments in the world's history when societies in particular - but not the
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world as a whole - have been optimistic. I think of this country. In the
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post-WWII era, there was a boon of happiness, and this country thrived as a
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result. The quality of life shot through the roof, and it was fueled by
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it's own achievements. In small, short, controlled cases, it can be a
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reality.
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But what happened? We gained information, we gain knowledge and a result,
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we became jaded. When that began, the boon busted - as all cases of social
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bliss eventually do - and we began down the path we are currently on.
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Information became more available. Seeing the war in Vietnam was raw
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unfiltered information this country had not experienced for quite some
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time. Doubt crept in, bred contempt, and grew into social conflict. Once
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we had a taste of raw information, there was no turning back.
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Now we have endless news channels, magazines, newspapers, and of course,
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the Internet to fuel it further. It is the hot, still, thriving water that
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best grows cynicism, doubt, and pessimism. It allows us to question more,
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to realize that the truth is far from simple, and that there are events in
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motion that twinge upon fear. Can you say the world is in good shape?
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That trust is something easy and simple to grant? That hope is worth
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cultivating and maintaining?
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So again, what if tomorrow, in spite of all of that, we got happy. We
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gained optimism as a people, in spite of what we knew to be wrong? If you
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feel good on any given day, everything seems better. You are on top of the
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world, and even though you know there are things wrong in your life, for a
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brief period in time, you have the ability to see past them. In theory,
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this could be a state of mind that could mend all the worlds' ills.
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So, does this in fact mean I'm going to start tomorrow? That I'm going to
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put on a brave face and smile at the world? I've just spend all this space
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going on how it could be salvation, so will I follow this new credo?
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No.
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Something else occurs to me at the same time. Social and/or global
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happiness is not within our grasp. Why? Because socially we are not
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mature enough to practice it. I believe that there is a social maturity.
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That as a whole, and as time goes on, society grows through stages of
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childhood into adulthood. Think for a moment if the world had embraced
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science and philosophy very early on. A battery is not a hard device to
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make at any moment in history. If the thought had been put into it, it
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could have been done. What if at some point thousands of years ago, we
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learned how to harness energy, and began the process of energy and physics
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theory? Is it not impossible to image that a society could have learned of
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the atom, and fusion, and stumbled into weapons of mass destruction in the
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same way we did?
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Now image other moments in history occurring normally. If England had the
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atomic bomb during the war with France, or during our colonial uprising,
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would they have given a second thought about using it? I'm no historian,
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but I believe it would have happened in some capacity. We needed to in the
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modern age to prove we could. I can think of a great many wars in which
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religious issues ran so strongly, it would have been as righteous to use
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the A-bomb as it would have been to see the Red Sea close upon an army.
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Yet we have not. In the relatively few years (but many when compared to
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the vast growth and proliferation of the technology) we have had atomic and
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nuclear technology, we have not blown ourselves up. Why? I think in part
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that it is due to the fact we have gained a social maturity not possessed
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hundreds or thousands of years ago. I think we see repercussions to our
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actions they may not have possessed. Think of the things you did as a
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child that you would not do as an adult. We do not do those things out of
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maturity. I think that since we make up society, society is us. As a
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result, it grows, ages, and matures as we do.
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Does this mean we are mature as a society now? More mature, most likely,
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but how mature? Fourteen? Eighteen? Thirty? I cannot say, but I would
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guess less than 20. What we do to one another and the environment is proof
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we still do not have the maturity required for real change.
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When I think about a happy civilization in recent history, I think of the
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Native Americans. Yes, they had conflict and wars, but they had a respect
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for themselves and the world they live in on a level we have yet to
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achieve. Is that proof that we are at least capable as well? No. Their
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society was so different from ours, so much simpler, so much happier, that
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it seemed barbaric and beneath us - and we destroyed it as a result.
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This is in part why I refuse to be happier. Because to do so, now, in this
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day and age, is still suicidal. As a society, we still see happiness as
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being trite and naive. If we did not, we wouldn't make such an effort to
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broadcast horrific news and thrive on misery and conspiracy. We would
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instead make an effort to pass along what is good, noble, and hopeful about
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the world we live in. We will not, and cannot, tolerate happiness as a
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condition of being.
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So am I saying I'm going to lie down and quit? That all of the world is
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doomed, and that we will in fact will the world to collapse upon itself?
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Entropy states that this is the natural end of all things, so perhaps it
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has to be true. But more importantly, is it true now? I don't think so.
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I think we are short one cataclysm - be it natural, man-made, or of just
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pure thought and idea - to set it in motion. One interpretation of
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Nostradamus's prophecies states that we will virtually annihilate
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ourselves, before enjoying 2000 years of peace.
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These events have happen before, but perhaps they were the wrong events.
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Or perhaps we lacked the social maturity to see their wisdom. Or even
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still, perhaps the wrong elements of the society failed to be a part of the
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rebuilding. I think of the Black Plague, one of the greatest thinnings of
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the population in known history. Did the world experience a boon after
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that? No, because it was the common man that was thinned the most. The
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political, royalty, and religious figures survived via money and power.
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Walling themselves up against the great unwashed allowed them to survive.
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Thus the ideas that could have effected real change were wasted on them, as
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they didn't experience the impact of the tragedy.
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Do we need war, famine, pestilence, or just the world turning upon us to
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teach us the lesson this time - when perhaps we'll appreciate it's message
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and magnitude? Perhaps, but perhaps not. Maybe our next cataclysm will be
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information. Awareness.
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So what do we do? We should keep at it. Information is the great
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equalizer. It transcends money, power, and status. The more we know, the
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closer we come to triggering the event that will effect great change. Will
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gaining information make us happier and more optimistic? In all
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likelihood, it will bring us deeper into misery and despair than we think
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our darkest moment to be now. I still think this is something to look
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forward to. I think that the path we, as a society, have embarked upon,
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may be worth the price.
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I have optimism that is growing while cultivated in pessimism. I have
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started to feel better. I started by asking, questioning, and calling onto
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the carpet my own sense of doom. I have done so by writing this article,
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and asking the question.
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I hope to live long enough to have it answered.
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- capone
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= Questions, Comments, Bitches, Ideas, Rants, Death Threats, Submissions =
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= Mail: jericho@dimensional.com (Mail is welcomed) =
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= FTP.DTO.NET /pub/zines/fuck =
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= FTP.ETEXT.ORG/pub/Zines/FUCK =
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= WWW http://www.attrition.org/~fuck =
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= (c) Copyright. All files copyright by the original author. =
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