Thanks, Crack Pipe

People today are too consumed with their tunnel vision, which is focused exclusively on satisfying their every want without concern for others. Outside influences, ideas, demands, etc are simply seen as an invasion on their personal universe. Which is why you so often see people freaking out so badly in public over utterly insignificant matters in a way that simply would not be the case a few decades ago.

Little things matter so much to them because their lives are so narrowly tuned to their day to day satisfaction and anything that gets in the way of that really is a life-destroying event for them, because they have compromised their potential for a thought-free existence.

Marketing has taken a turn towards lamenting how everything is a hassle how horribly overburdened everyone is and how even the most unremarkable thing is a terrible inconvenience. It perfectly indicates how even day-to-day life victimizes people now due to their own shallowness.

Not only do people want to live worry-free, they want to live thought-free.

Everything is subcontracted and delegated to someone else. Hire a maid. Ship the infants to daycare. Send the kids to sports and piano the second they leave school until it's time for bed. Hire landscapers. Elect politicians who will just wave their magic wands and make everything OK without asking for any sacrifices. The list goes on.

When The Big Issue in the 2004 election was Gay Marriage, I really knew most people had completely lost the plot. Thousands of Americans dead, the country bleeding money like crazy in a war without end...and fucking gay marriage is the number one concern across the land.

When you are out in public, watch people attempt to figure out simple things in their day to day lives. Notice how many well-off, very gainfully employed people simply cannot complete day to day tasks or comprehend information that does not pertain to their specific occupation. If you've worked with the public in any capacity, you almost certainly have tales of surprise retardation in supposedly intelligent people. Take a step back and realize how often that occurs and how widespread the problem is.

Increasingly the mantra is "I don't want to worry about anything, think about anything, or be responsible for anything."

People want to shut themselves off, disavow any responsibilities to anyone other than themselves and those they surround themselves with, but whine all the while about how gas prices are too high, traffic just gets worse and worse, and taxes keep going up. It's expected that politicians will simply fix everything without expecting people to change the way they live their lives, but that for some reason they just haven't done it yet. The concept that larger issues could be at play simply doesn't register with them.

These same people complain about how out of touch intellectuals are with their way of life. Hell, I'll admit I'm completely out of touch with that way of life and I really don't feel bad about it in the slightest degree.

When your way of life is so utterly pointless, self-defeating and destructive to the society around you, why should it be something we should desire a connection to?