Why Are We All Angry?

Here in the Western World, we live in the most benevolent civilization in all human history. The irony is a lot of us seem pissed off about it. Odd as it may seem, a ton of people spend a ton of time complaining about our world and the collective bounty of 3,000 years of economic and social success. Why? There are three reasons. I like to call them the Killer Bs.

Bewildered — Like our medieval ancestors, we don’t understand anything about the world we live in. Face it, folks! We’re stupid. These days, most people couldn’t tell you the difference between an aardvark and an antelope if you put burning coals between their toes. And it’s not just zoology that stumps us. Common knowledge simply isn’t common anymore. We might be able to read and write, but we’re culturally, historically, economically, scientifically and mathematically illiterate — and proud of it. For some weird reason, smart is not a currency we use or even value. However, without these intellectual building blocks, it’s impossible to make sense out of the 1,001 complex systems that govern contemporary life or to understand our place in it. At least a 12th century peasant could rely on God to justify his existence. Unfortunately, since Nietzsche shot his mouth off, we don’t even have that option. So, unable to figure out the simple how and why of what’s going on, many people boil over with frustration and say “Screw it!”

Bored — Intellectually divorced from reality, we have retreated behind our videos screens which filter out all the complexities of real life. This is a mutant utopia, scripted with gratuitous drama and broad music-hall comedy. The problem is it’s all relentlessly the same: kittens have achieved maximum cuteness, blockbuster movies bust tired old blocks, and the only shock left in those “shocking finales” is a shrug. There’s no place to go in the cyber-verse that isn’t somebody else’s sequel, prequel or reboot. All that’s left is hours and hours and hours of looping YouTube videos, everybody “liking” everything and bum-numbing binges of “must see TV.” Face it, folks! We’re bored — bored to the bone — and it’s making us bitchy.

Betrayed — We may ignore it or fail to understand it, but this is still the only reality we have — and sometimes it can be nasty. Unfortunately, when that nasty comes calling (and it always will) it’s so alien to our everybody-gets-a-rainbow existence that we think something has gone horribly wrong — and we want to know why. Flushed with excitement at the possibility of a “real” problem, but unable to comprehend any of the nuances of it, we demand an explanation for how our society failed. We want a reason, and we want it yesterday. When we don’t get it — we get angry. We begin to see evil where it doesn’t exist, impossible plots and conspiracies, tidy theories of nefarious secrets and blame — lots and lots of blame. Face it, folks! We truly believe we’re being betrayed by the very institutions we’re supposed to trust.

The Killer Bs aren’t killing the most benevolent civilization in history, but they’re certainly making it unpleasant. If we could get them under control, we’d all be a lot happier.

Nothing But Truth

Truth is one of those things that everybody says they want, but in reality, people are not all that interested in it when it actually shows up. This is because people like to go with the flow, and truth tends to get in the way of what people want to believe. So here are a few truths that most people try to avoid.

Greed is not a bad thing — Greed may be responsible for a lot of problems in this world, but look around you: 99.99% of everything you see is the result of some greedy bastard figuring out a way to make money. Without greed, we’d all still be killing our own food, peeing in the woods and dying at the ripe old age of 31.

People are not equal — We’ve spent the last 4 generations trying to fool ourselves into thinking that all people are equal. They aren’t. Here’s how it works. I’m an average person — which means that there are millions of people out there who are smarter than I am and therefore have a better-than-average chance of making better decisions than I do. On the other hand, there are also millions of people who aren’t as smart as me, and therefore their decisions are mostly crap. Yes, we all bleed red blood, but smart people tend to avoid knife fights.

There is a Pretty Girl Rule — Like it or don’t, pretty girls get treated better than anyone else on this planet. On the flip side, they also have to put up with a lot more bullshit than the rest of us.

Advertising doesn’t work — Even though junior college sociologists keep telling us it’s not our fault we buy stupid stuff — it is. The truth is advertising doesn’t actually manipulate all that many people into buying things. If it did, we’d all still be driving Edsels™, drinking New Coke™ and playing Atari™ video games. Serious marketers know that advertising leads from the rear. It chases trends; it doesn’t create them and its sole purpose is brand recognition. Don’t believe me? Go spend a gazillion dollars advertising buggy whips and see how far that gets you.

Life is all about sex and death — I hate to admit it, but Freud was right and all those billions of synapses in our brains that are supposed to separate us from the beasts and the begonias — don’t. Arrogant we may be, but the bottom line is humans are just another species on this planet, and we’re governed by the same rules: stay alive, and get laid.

And finally:

We’re getting better at this — Despite what the “Ain’t It Awful” crowd keeps yelling about, across the Internet and out of every other media orifice, the world is not going to Hell on frequent flyer miles. In the 21st century, there is less poverty, less famine, fewer wars, and fewer epidemics than at any time in history. There’s also less discrimination, less racism, less gender inequality and less violent crime. Infant mortality is at an all-time low, and life expectancy is increasing. We produce more food, clean more polluted water and generate more sustainable energy than ever before. There are still a lot of things wrong with this world, but the truth is — when you stop, take three deep ones, and look at it — we’re actually beginning to build a better world.

Truth

Despite what philosophers and college sophomores try to tell you, Truth is not an elusive beast. It’s not some shy chimera, hiding in a morally ambiguous forest, feeding on tender buds of nuance and leafy shoots of supposition. It’s not semantically ambivalent. It’s not coloured in a million shades of grey. It’s not a matter of opinion. Nope! None of the above! Truth is real. It’s big. It’s bold. It’s etched in stone. And I can prove it. Here are some hardcore facts — no ifs, buts, or maybes. This is Truth, and it’s happening all around us.

The square of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.

There are three kinds of people in the world — those who understand math and those who don’t.

Your family always knows which buttons to push because they installed them.

Rock Bottom has a basement.

Paris is always a good idea.

The distance between loser and lover is sometimes measured in tequila.

Pregnant women are smug.

If you keep your clothes long enough, they might eventually come back into style — but by the time they do, they won’t fit.

A low-cut neckline beats a bad hair day every time.

The probability of red wine getting spilled on white carpet is directly related to the cost of the carpet, not the cost of the wine.

The only birthdays that actually matter are 18, 21, 40, 50 and 60.

And my favourite:

Everybody wants a sensitive man until the sonofabitch actually shows up.

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