I rolled over into anger this morning. Of course, a lot of people who know me think I'm angry all of the time. It's not true, I like to rock the boat out of boredom, a lot of my criticism is sharp, and sometimes I think of the most socially inappropriate or off the wall statement I can make for my own entertainment.
Today was different, I welcomed the day with a real anger, a real rage that isn't immediately extinguished by whatever comforts of modernity (though the computer screen light itself tried) when I realized I live in the 1950's. Fear, we live in a world of fear, and no matter how hard I try to not invoke Hunter Thompson in my writing, or how much I try to escape the words fear and loathing, it's all I feel and all I see in this world.
Counter-culture in the 1960's was about more than social unrest or political change, it was about crawling out from underneath the desks, putting sunglasses on, in case the nuclear blast was too bright, and actually going outside to experience humanity. All we do now is complain about our bills, feel trapped by our jobs, follow directions from our significant others or our families, and fear the consequences of stepping out of line. We live within the id of a control freak.
You see, if you really pay attention, the 60's counterculture happened but eventually, the 50's won. Both Kennedy assassinations, MLK, Malcolm X...those who tried to change the social setting of that time from the stage instead of the lawn, were cut down. People were experimenting with acid, and while the drugs opened many Doors, the Manson Murders came along, and only left open the door to madness. The Drug War found it's roots, the war against Communism amped up and the nuclear bombs kept replicating.
The 60's were about passion. There were about being fearless and finding what it meant to be human, that's why creativity exploded; ideas were shared, people were gathering to see what each other had to say. But the boots of the 50's came in and let everyone know; bullets would continue to fly, if not into the Vietnamese, into students at Kent State. The 50's wanted fear, they wanted soldiers and they wanted everyone to understand the threat of Communism, to fall in line, to produce, both babies and bombs. Every man was a part of the machine, a part of industry, a line to produce, over and over again until the very repetition and cadence of the factory turned each man into nothing more than another material. And though I try so hard to avoid invoking Mario Savio when talking about my disgust for our bastardized and Fascist form of Capitalism, it's too hard, because just like Hunter Thompson, he nailed it.
So today I woke up full of rage, because all of this History, these events, these social changes and all of the tears, all of the blood washed over me. I opened my eyes and waves of the past rolled unto my body, as if I'd finally crashed ashore from the vast stretches of numbness somewhere between the Pacific and Atlantic. I feel as if the past decade of my life has been stolen or wasted..there is no fulfillment, there is nothing but bills and fear, loathing, and machines and a constant oppression of being told what to do, how much I owe, what direction to go, what time to be there. I find nothing but orders that help me roll down the assembly line.
I'm twenty-eight and feel much older than I should, because the 50's won. All of my friends are married, raising families, in their ranch-style homes or their two-storied neutral colored homes, complete with fire places they never use or wooden decks they never stain. They all smile on Facebook or hash-tag how great it is to be themselves, but they all drink themselves into oblivion, and get entirely too emotional over a football game. None of them have any real or worthy thoughts about ISIS or Ebola, just irrational fear and deep convictions about how they do or don't stand behind whatever athlete or actor is caught in the middle of a scandal...and why it's a first or second amendment issue, while protests are stamped out by the 1950's, and our police are armed as if they are fighting Communism in our own back yard, or Terrorism, or whatever other ism that allots our government the opportunity to soak the Earth in iron.
I am bored to death. Nobody goes outside since 9/11. Occupy Wall Street was a blip on the radar but nothing happened, just like the 60's, Communist provocateurs came in and ruined the cultural revolution before it started. We're just one big family, trying to find freedom and individuality, caught between the loud screams and swift batons of Communists and Fascists. Kent State was a big deal in 1970, but now the cops kill so many people nobody cares. If you want the full attention of America you have to cut someone's head off with a Swiss Army Knife, or gun down a bunch of children. That's what get's headlines these days.
I live in a time where literature and poetry has been murdered by illiterates on social media and viral inspirational quotes, in a quaint font painted over a picture of a sunset. I don't even remember the last time I saw a sunset. The Republicans are becoming so Fascist and the Democrats are becoming so Communist that I'm starting to have a hard time telling a difference between the two. Everyone is afraid to take acid, and if you smoke a joint you just added 30 more days onto your sentence of working at a miserable job. Social change is what's trending, and ideas only exist on General Electric commercials. Music is made by computer noises and not instruments, free love is confused with free porn, and while the Berlin Wall is gone, all I hear in America is people screaming to put up new walls.
This is my rage America, nobody goes outside anymore. Nobody shares ideas, everyone is on medication because they have been told by a doctor who was given that title by the state, there is something wrong if they feel anything about anything. The 1950's won. The Beatles are dead and Apple is there instead. Everything is Eerie, and though I know what colors are, I swear everything is black and white. My loathing is your fear, of everything all the time. The news wants us to be afraid, our Fascist and Communist leaders want us to be afraid, our bosses want us to be afraid, and so do our families. Yes, I loathe it, I loathe all of it, because my biggest fear is to be just another part of the machine. They say you are what you eat, and I've seen how we process meat, and I fear I know where this conveyor belt is taking me. Welcome to 1952.
