I recently found an essay of mine composed for a freshman English class in college, around the year 1995, written at the age of 19. I have always known, even at a young age, that our current system is way warped and really, it does not have to be this way!
Greed, Prejudice, Fear, Hate, Violence
They say money talks. That's funny, I've never heard it say anything. Ha ha just kidding. I know what they mean. They mean that everything has a price, that you could buy anything if you have enough money. Is this so? Could you buy the ozone layer once it is gone? How much would it cost to buy pure air or pure water once it has all been toxified? How many dollars would it cost to make whales plentiful again? So, please take a deep clean breathe of fresh air while you can, look at your children and think about it. Clearly, our civilization has a hugely warped idea of what progress really is, and that is what is screwing everything up. It makes me want to barf.
What urge is there in us that wants everything to be the same? When something is different, when we do not understand why it is different, does something in us speak out, move us, wanting us to reshape the unknown into a thing to completely understand? Why can't we just leave it alone, leave behind some mystery? Do we have to crush everything into an understandable little mold to be sure we have control, so it does not run around being different and out of control? Out of control is scary, but is it not more scary to have everything the same?
Once a man told me a story of how he had gone to hell. He described his suffering as hideous, almost beyond belief! "Describe it," I said. 'Hell was just himself alone with his lifelong accumulation of hideous, ugly, selfish thoughts which gnawed on him, constantly reminding him of his lonely, endless, hopeless isolation.' "This is Hell and you better believe it," he said.
A friend once explained that it take two opposing sides to make a war. If this is true, then riddle me this: If you do not want wars, how do you eliminate opposing sides without, at the same time, creating another conflict?
How many times must we go over the same road until we recognize that it is the same road we have gone over so many times before?