Reality Bites

I woke up this morning with a pounding headache and an itchy knee-pit. What happened last night? Well, celebrations were in order for our emancipation from ¨the Loft¨. That´s what happened.

We dined, wined, and pined into the wee hours of the morn. We discussed politics, philosophy, and the perpetual pendulum shift We chatted about what/who we want to be when we grow up, potential business endeavours, ans how strawberry champagne tastes like strawberries. We were reacquainted with our terrace, a missed luxury, and our annoying, blood-thirsty friends.

How do I reiterate our discussions when the topics varied from toe-jam to existential properties of Quantum mechanics?

Let me just summarize our discussion by saying that I came to the conclusion that reality is not that bad. Each person´s reality is a subjective experience. From the very rich to the very poor, life seems to be full of problems. Even for the average bear, hard times can range from not having enough to pay back one´s credit card to missing one´s morning coffee. I can´t help but hope that this could be something positive.

I was watching Serenity the other night (yes, with Spanish subtitles) and the Reavers were one of the bad guys in the plot: Ravenous, tortuous, sub-human beings with a flavour for pilaging and killing. The creation of Reavers was not spontaneous evolution. Instead, this type of sub-human was created by other humans thinking they could change people. These pompous sub-deities pumped a type of chemical into a community´s air-system that was meant to weed out aggression in the population. It worked and the people stopped fighting. Everything. They stopped fighting the urge to eat, the necessity to procreate, the want to live. The other half had the reverse effect and became super aggressive Reavers. But, Joss Whedon had a point. What does complacency do to a population? How could contentment be blissful? Problems, whether it´s fighting one´s conscience or with one´s best friend, has been the driving force of our own creativity.

We are naturally tortured souls because we have souls. Life is not about the four F´s, there´s something more to humans that borders the divine. So, those with truly trivial problems, should embrace them and realize that they are there to help motivate us, in some way or another. I'm not going to get high and mighty by saying that there are those out there with real problems, like feeding their families. Every person's problems stir an emotion inside for legitimate reasons, whether vanity or neuroticism. I guess it´s easier to proclaim that we should all embrace our lows, but, as Tobin said to me, ´the good times never last, but neither do the bad times. The bad times are there to show you how good the good times really are.´

Even those that don´t have a lot of money are able to appreciate decadence in the simplest form, because that is also subjective. The rich splurge on yachts and the poor splurge on meat. I´m not saying that it´s a perfect world, I´m just telling you how I have seen it. As you know me, I am hopeful for a day when everything basic would be provided so that society's individuals can focus on true creativity and innovation. Sometimes, though, I question if we would be motivated to do what we want to do if we didn´t have problems nipping at our heels.

I think we would. We would get bored of being bored.

Cheers to my trivial tribulations.