Slaughter of the Disaffected

Buford Youthward
stockcap@hotmail.com

Accusations are no different than indictments in the arena of perception. Point a finger and smash a dream. Who needs a dream when the world is filled with surface-level commitments and partial understanding?

Communication may serve the purpose of gaining ground on the knowledge of good and evil, but it's just an option we can turn on and off. It does fill a great desire within us, just as food quiets hunger, water quenches thirst. Every whisper is a hint packed with innuendo and desire.

Meanwhile the history of nations is littered with mounds of dead bodies, the residue of inhumanity. These same nations tell us to stop writing on walls while they piss in their own water supply.

So morality and legislation are mere shades of gray. Bribery is criminal but lobbying is artistic, scientific. In the future perhaps all scientists should carry guns. Why not?

Economics is never as simple as understanding the interdependence between the supplied and their supplier. You can wave a wand to try to keep society in harmony, but the scale of economy dances to the beat of conformity and dissonance, while the economy of scale provides a makeshift cover for any politician in need.

The way of the wind tells us that freedom comes with no charge, and the way of the world tells us that freedom comes at great cost. A flag or sail is useless without the wind. Feel free to pick your beliefs with great consideration or with complete disregard.

Instinct and desire are not the same. We learn to love just as we decide what to despise. Everything is a matter of view, even the contexts in which we choose to communicate. The disaffected walk past the graveyard whistling great symphonies -- an angel on one shoulder, a devil on the other side -- fingers stained with permanent ink.