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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
                             -----------

Are you in a good mood?  Happy?  Then stay that way.  Stop reading.  Go away.

Everyone else, join me for a moment.

I was reading a review tonight for a book.  The basic premise was that a
group of people, if they worked together, could indeed form a happy,
productive, and functional utopian society.  My first reaction was to
scoff.  Still, the last point the reviewer made stuck with me.  It was
something to the effect that mood of text was catchy.  That brought me to
thought.

Could it be as simple as that?  Could just being happier, being more
optimistic, breed hope?  Bring about positive change?  Could it in fact
make the world a better place?  As simplistic and impossible as the notion
was, I began to see it had merit.  It had truth.

At that moment, the thought itself became too much to bear.  That for a
moment I comprehended the fact the salvation of this county, the world,
mankind, and more importantly, ourselves, was well within all our grasps.
That if we willed it, it could be.  Now it is your turn to scoff.  This
theory of sunshine blowing freely up the collective consciousness's skirt
could make the world a happy-go-lucky place we could be happy to live in is
even remotely credible.  I would do the same, had I not thought it myself.
Then again, just perhaps, it validates the theory as a fact.  That since we
are incapable of comprehending it, we propetuate the misery the world is in.

Isn't that, and hasn't that, been the problem all along?  When has the
world as a whole been optimistic about the state and fate of mankind?
There have been times of prosperity, to be sure.  There are very notable
moments in the world's history when societies in particular - but not the
world as a whole - have been optimistic.  I think of this country.  In the
post-WWII era, there was a boon of happiness, and this country thrived as a
result.  The quality of life shot through the roof, and it was fueled by
it's own achievements.  In small, short, controlled cases, it can be a
reality.

But what happened?  We gained information, we gain knowledge and a result,
we became jaded.  When that began, the boon busted - as all cases of social
bliss eventually do - and we began down the path we are currently on.
Information became more available.  Seeing the war in Vietnam was raw
unfiltered information this country had not experienced for quite some
time.  Doubt crept in, bred contempt, and grew into social conflict.  Once
we had a taste of raw information, there was no turning back.

Now we have endless news channels, magazines, newspapers, and of course,
the Internet to fuel it further.  It is the hot, still, thriving water that
best grows cynicism, doubt, and pessimism.  It allows us to question more,
to realize that the truth is far from simple, and that there are events in
motion that twinge upon fear.  Can you say the world is in good shape?
That trust is something easy and simple to grant?  That hope is worth
cultivating and maintaining?

So again, what if tomorrow, in spite of all of that, we got happy.  We
gained optimism as a people, in spite of what we knew to be wrong?  If you
feel good on any given day, everything seems better.  You are on top of the
world, and even though you know there are things wrong in your life, for a
brief period in time, you have the ability to see past them.  In theory,
this could be a state of mind that could mend all the worlds' ills.

So, does this in fact mean I'm going to start tomorrow?  That I'm going to
put on a brave face and smile at the world?  I've just spend all this space
going on how it could be salvation, so will I follow this new credo?

No.

Something else occurs to me at the same time.  Social and/or global
happiness is not within our grasp.  Why?  Because socially we are not
mature enough to practice it.  I believe that there is a social maturity.
That as a whole, and as time goes on, society grows through stages of
childhood into adulthood.  Think for a moment if the world had embraced
science and philosophy very early on.  A battery is not a hard device to
make at any moment in history.  If the thought had been put into it, it
could have been done.  What if at some point thousands of years ago, we
learned how to harness energy, and began the process of energy and physics
theory?  Is it not impossible to image that a society could have learned of
the atom, and fusion, and stumbled into weapons of mass destruction in the
same way we did?  

Now image other moments in history occurring normally.  If England had the
atomic bomb during the war with France, or during our colonial uprising,
would they have given a second thought about using it?  I'm no historian,
but I believe it would have happened in some capacity.  We needed to in the
modern age to prove we could.  I can think of a great many wars in which
religious issues ran so strongly, it would have been as righteous to use
the A-bomb as it would have been to see the Red Sea close upon an army.  

Yet we have not.  In the relatively few years (but many when compared to
the vast growth and proliferation of the technology) we have had atomic and
nuclear technology, we have not blown ourselves up.  Why?  I think in part
that it is due to the fact we have gained a social maturity not possessed
hundreds or thousands of years ago.  I think we see repercussions to our
actions they may not have possessed.  Think of the things you did as a
child that you would not do as an adult.  We do not do those things out of
maturity.  I think that since we make up society, society is us.  As a
result, it grows, ages, and matures as we do.

Does this mean we are mature as a society now?  More mature, most likely,
but how mature?  Fourteen?  Eighteen?  Thirty?  I cannot say, but I would
guess less than 20.  What we do to one another and the environment is proof
we still do not have the maturity required for real change.  

When I think about a happy civilization in recent history, I think of the
Native Americans.  Yes, they had conflict and wars, but they had a respect
for themselves and the world they live in on a level we have yet to
achieve.  Is that proof that we are at least capable as well?  No.  Their
society was so different from ours, so much simpler, so much happier, that
it seemed barbaric and beneath us - and we destroyed it as a result.

This is in part why I refuse to be happier.  Because to do so, now, in this
day and age, is still suicidal.  As a society, we still see happiness as
being trite and naive.  If we did not, we wouldn't make such an effort to
broadcast horrific news and thrive on misery and conspiracy.  We would
instead make an effort to pass along what is good, noble, and hopeful about
the world we live in.  We will not, and cannot, tolerate happiness as a
condition of being.

So am I saying I'm going to lie down and quit?  That all of the world is
doomed, and that we will in fact will the world to collapse upon itself?
Entropy states that this is the natural end of all things, so perhaps it
has to be true.  But more importantly, is it true now?  I don't think so.
I think we are short one cataclysm - be it natural, man-made, or of just
pure thought and idea - to set it in motion.  One interpretation of
Nostradamus's prophecies states that we will virtually annihilate
ourselves, before enjoying 2000 years of peace.  

These events have happen before, but perhaps they were the wrong events.
Or perhaps we lacked the social maturity to see their wisdom.  Or even
still, perhaps the wrong elements of the society failed to be a part of the
rebuilding.  I think of the Black Plague, one of the greatest thinnings of
the population in known history.  Did the world experience a boon after
that?  No, because it was the common man that was thinned the most.  The
political, royalty, and religious figures survived via money and power.
Walling themselves up against the great unwashed allowed them to survive.
Thus the ideas that could have effected real change were wasted on them, as
they didn't experience the impact of the tragedy.

Do we need war, famine, pestilence, or just the world turning upon us to
teach us the lesson this time - when perhaps we'll appreciate it's message
and magnitude?  Perhaps, but perhaps not.  Maybe our next cataclysm will be
information.  Awareness.

So what do we do?  We should keep at it.  Information is the great
equalizer.  It transcends money, power, and status.  The more we know, the
closer we come to triggering the event that will effect great change.  Will
gaining information make us happier and more optimistic?  In all
likelihood, it will bring us deeper into misery and despair than we think
our darkest moment to be now.  I still think this is something to look
forward to.  I think that the path we, as a society, have embarked upon,
may be worth the price.  

I have optimism that is growing while cultivated in pessimism.  I have
started to feel better.  I started by asking, questioning, and calling onto
the carpet my own sense of doom.  I have done so by writing this article,
and asking the question.

I hope to live long enough to have it answered.


- capone

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