Hello again friends and internet strangers, this will be a
depart from the “usual” humor, and rather be a somber piece, just warning you… douche
bag (had to have at least ONE insult). I want to start out by saying I didn’t want
to post this. At first, I thought I would make it a song. Then in a rare moment
of inspiration, I decided to make it an animated YouTube video. Something wonderful!
I plotted about the months it would take me, about the hard work it would take,
and ultimately I dashed my owned hopes. I remembered just how many people read
my blog, when I actively posted to it, and when I tried to promote it to my
friends. Then I recalled my songs I’ve written, how much I’ve promoted them to
friends, and how many have listened. Then I thought how those made me feel. I’ve
all but given up on music now, the same with art, and most of my writing. Why
is that? Is it not in your soul Dustin? To answer your question, why yes, yes
it is. Where I happily (or unhappily) keep it. The images much more clear in my
head than I could ever paint them. The words unsullied by sentence structure.
The lyrics unmarred by the pace of the beats. Perfect in their essence, without
the dreadful peacocking of them, followed by an all around gust of “eh” as
people don’t even click the link. So without further ado, I present to you, the
current drama in my life, bane of my heart, and crusher of my soul.
The Culture of “Me.”.
I do not blame man, for if not them another would rise, perhaps more terrible, but the same none the less. If I could do any one thing, be it from a genies wish, or from a pixies kiss, I would travel back and stop it all. Not back to when society began using money, and seeding the greed of our hearts. Not back to when we cut the first tree’s to burn for warmth, or homes. Not back to when we fought nail on tooth to eat. Not to when the first tool was sought as a branch to twill ants from their dust holes. Further. Back further. I would take, that essential quark, and move it, mid expansion in the planck time era. That one single mote of energy that there, at the right time caused just the right interaction, with the right essence of matter that fed the first coalescence who fed gravitations into galaxies and stars at just the right spot. Not out of hate for man, or malice for mice, but understanding of pains so burdened from life. 3.6 billion years ago the first. Born from a cosmic chance and whom knows what untold time passing and universes lasting into our time. The first, among them more than one. The birth of need. The start of competition. The end of everything. In the face of this began the culture of me. Me! I am special. I must spread myself. I will leave a legacy. Even in those simple one celled organisms it was there. They were not all right, not all them perfect to spread. Not all the highest form of their respective forms. Yet the drive there was the same. Many failed. Every instance of one who did not scream from its very center “ME! ME IT’S ME! TO BE IT ALL!” fell short. Every instance of minor mercy punished. Every slowness to destroy, reverted on its owners. For millennia, only those who screamed the loudest prevailed. Continued. Evolved. Grew smarter, faster, better. More for the drive, more voice to scream “ME!”, more strength to push “you” away for “me.”. As it must be. The grind continues, the plight thickens, just in nature alone a trillion voices screaming out “ME” louder and louder in concert, until all the land and air vibrated with its notes. So much of it, it began to balance. So much it became resonant. Still, at any given time, had one ceased to push its own agenda, gone. Instantly snuffed out in the smear of time that was its lifespan. A smudge below the already dirty past. Somehow, we prevailed. Screaming more and more than any. We could not be bested, but still inside each of us, the echoes of the past rings as clearly now than ever. Silencing voices of all the others, not by competing, but by raising the noise floor. “ME!” We scream each of us when alone, when together, when crying or dying, or even at home. Each who does not, drowned in guilt, sorrow, until they can stand it no longer and either scream and fight to rejoin, or quietly fade into self oblivion. Protest many do that “us” cannot happen. WILL not happen. Could not happen. Everything is possible. From one mote to planet, to mankind to others. It has happened one way, but why not another. 3.6 billion years of “Me.” Is why. Each “us” or “you” gone. Even now when defeated the natural order of our own machinery of making, 3.6 million years of “Me.” is in our core. Each of us. Every single one. Hate it. Defy it at will. Pretend it’s not there. It still rings as true as the first time it was screamed against the bleakness to ears unhearing. Me. Always was. Always will be.
So I say, for us… to be at any peace. We must beget the me, for the sound cannot be erased, once echoed out, ringing for eternity. Let us hope I am wrong, and for the sake of your “Me.”, that it is not I whom travels back first.
