Our "Terrible" World

"Oh, the world has just gone to shit in today's age...."
I am SO tired of this sentiment. The things we dislike about the world today and repeatedly state are at "crisis points" (poverty, war, famine, class distinction, the economy, etc.) have been around, and in much larger scope in most cases throughout history, since people formed civilization. From the first caveperson that horded more meat or fruit or whatever was important and then declared themselves "superior" to their bretheren, there has always been an imbalance and sense of injustice in society. I don't dispute it still exists: I'm just sick of people referring to today's world as "the worst it's ever been." Really? In today's civilized nations, we are free to sit at a computer at any time of day and write ANY opinion we choose without fear of reprisal (unless you slander someone. Then you can, and should be, sued.) I read a post on here that called George Bush a traitor. The President!! Yet, we tend to ignore the fact that we DO have that kind of freedom, and take it for granted. Oh yeah, that's a TERRIBLE thing, to have this freedom. Much worse than being persecuted, hunted, and utlimately tortured and killed for your opinion or even appearance (a la the crusades, witch-hunts, lynchings.) And OH NO! The media is brainwashing my child into becoming a disrespectful, violent, arrogant little piss-ant! No, YOU are not controlling the media your child is exposed to, therefore, you are ALLOWING this to happen! Take some frickin responsibility for your own actions people! We are SO spoiled in the Great Eight, born with such a righteous sense of entiltlement. I know, because I'm young, Canadian, and feel I'm entitled to the world, yet I do not want to work for it. I admit this openly. I know that this makes the elder generations who actually did work hard and had less opportunity absolutely want to scream at all of us to pull up our pants, get our hands dirty, and work for a living! But we can't, because the world has gone to shit and we're so cynical, what's the point the rich get richer the poor get poorer blah blah. Suck it up! It's ALWAYS been that way....and it ALWAYS will be. There will never be a worldwide revolution of Orwellian proportions that overturns the balance of rich over poor, powerful over weak, franchised over disenfranchised, bourgeois over proletariat, any number of things over any number of other things. Stop hoping for it. It won't happen. I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. People on the whole are afraid of change. How much fear does that equate to if you times one person by 7 plus billion? It would literally take a complete and utter reversal of everything we've been taught and socialized into to make the revolution happen. This is simply not realistic. Things do need to change, we just need to be realistic in the scope of those changes, and also appreciate some of the GOOD things about today's world (freedom to blog, for example.) But it is our egos, our myopic viewpoints, our self-absorption that lead us to believe the world is the worst it has ever been, that it's "going to shit" and needs to be "saved." I can think of numerous (too numerous to list) times in history where the future and outlook for society was much bleaker. Yet, we're still here. But we still see the world through tunnel vision, as a smoldering cess pool that needs to be fixed. Well, I've got news for you.....the world has always been one big toilet bowl, waiting for the cosmic plummer. And he's not coming folks. He's all booked up.

Sir Smittius