The New Humanities

So, you wanna talk about birth, eh? No, just the usual: with me as prune face...the latest Dick Tracy character - already jaundiced, and looking like somebody else’s child. Life’s a waste of money; even w/hand-me-downs and careful preparation. And it’s not like any of us got some real choice amidst all of this.... Nevermind casinos - family’s the biggest gamble we all got thrust amongst us - so you’d be well-advised to avoid cleaning up after...and get the hell out. Cause there’s no real management here to rake percentages, and meagrely reward your housekeeping....

And, then...it’s time for education! Childrearing w/menaces; and your presence is fully expected. The basics are simple: primates run in packs - and tear at those not so afflicted.... Most teachers don’t know how to teach - and have learned to look the other way in lieu of adequate payscales. All you learnt was how to learn, as mere distraction. Because books (very rarely) bite back.... And, when we can all learn humiliation & retreat; then money’s a waste of time. You kill mine & I’ll kill yours - but we’ll both be be in tertiary institutions next year...whatever our sins this morning....

Anaesthesia merely deadens the nerves - but...if time’s a waste of life - then, who’s counting? Whilst all of your successes are social failures, when confidence is the only coin you just can’t buy, at any price - even if you held the tokens - and when all that you learn simply reminds you of the intangibles that you’ll never possess...or even just the fist at your throat, whilst the opposite sex watches dismissive...then, fuck it. And, as the people around you pair & re-pair, it simply twists the knife - until you'll wish that you were impotent...or ugly. And you’re goddamn sure they think you are....

So...learn & learn again - til it’s like a cheap monkey on your back - and you can’t even enjoy a drunk to save your worthless life; not that anything else seems worth much, after the monkey takes on all of your lowest intentions - and’ll screw any idea that clambers on for a ride.... But, when every book, however filled with truths, turns isolate in its failure of other knowledge - a reminder that others have lives instead of this - and your teachers the worst of all...because them you can question - then the taste soon turns bitter.... And, in the face of other lives getting younger - as the old cease to learn - your life’s, simply, a waste of time...without wisdom. But that, increasingly, seems mostly accessible to dentists....

And then, art kicks its way back in again - as it’s wont to do every few years - transfiguring failure; to remind us that the traditional consolations still exist...without prejudice. But it’s an industry today...and you - still - can’t bring yourself to try sales, as your gut spreads, and they marry around you - cycling through depression & the creativity you can’t believe in...while elitist hacks w/the souls of sales managers gather their funding whilst they may.... And then - when the fit is upon you - and you rail against them as just another pack of primates, with nothing to say for excellence: then, if they could only put down their hors d’oeuvres, they’d tear at you. But, of course...you knew that. Time’s a waste of money when there’s networking to do...but, just maybe, your real fear is that they wouldn’t even be bothered to cut you w/real knives - having carefully forgotten the real....

History is -traditionally - the consolation of age...but, the generation prior wanted a re-write, and the rest decided to opt out: so, you know no-one’ll be listening. With age ignored, there’s no place for those comforts you don’t bring with you but, strangely, this is almost a comfort in itself. Hanging around the creches for the aging wealthy, you can look forward to mocking their discomfort - as their children never visit, until they move in (after the death) to divide the stage properties, and you finally get to do some serious tearing yourself.... With the truth that: whatever they had is gone, irrespective, and that their money’s a waste of life....