Cormac McCarthy | Waiting for Satan

Sometimes I look out at the fleshy, squishy, hairy collection of cells we call the human body and I wonder how anyone could possibly have an ego.

Now, that isn’t to say I don’t understand why we have an ego. The ego is what makes your emotions feel real. In order for a tribe to survive, there has to be a certain drive for personal achievement. You have to be willing to fight saber-tooth tigers.

Emotions are our quickest and most accessible tool for deciphering a situation and, as such, we rely on them way too much.

Unfortunately, egos can be damaged and, like a balloon filling with air, the larger they get the quicker they pop.

Our emotions pass through our ego, inflating it, telling us when someone has insulted us. They feel so very powerful, we assume they’re real. And they are real.

But real and objective are not the same thing.Perception is important. It’s what makes us unique.

But unique and correct are not the same thing.

No matter how amazing you think your idea is, it’s been done before. Through the power of the internet, the whole world is connected. Concepts and thoughts and mindless chatter all mix together and swirl around to give voice to every idea ever conceived.

Your job is to interpret this whirlpool as honestly as possible. Grab in with your hands and clasp an idea you believe in.

If an ego is useful for anything, it’s sorting out the problems in yourself. When you feel it flare up, that means you’re doing something wrong. You’ve fallen too deeply in love with yourself. You can’t admit you have flaws, because they’re cauterized into your psyche and you know removing them will be painful. Shaving off the infection will take some of the skin. Skin you’d like to keep.You don’t want to fall.

But sometime you must fall into the six-lashed eye.

And we all do eventually.

~Fin

As we close in on the second week without a government, my fellow citizens and I begin to see the repercussions. I’m living on nothing but cheap canned beans and half dollar ramen noodles. Was this basically my diet before the government left? Who can tell? All the days blend together in this post-democracy hellscape.

If I work out my dumb citizen head-brain, I can almost remember how this government shutdown began. Of course, as a non-politician with limited funds, I can’t even begin to possibly comprehend the complexities of such decisions. Such things require amazing mental gymnastics to make even the slightest sense, and my brain ego is just too human-sized to perform such incredible feats of self-rationalization. I believe it had something to do with how letting poor people see doctors will explode the country with an atomic death bomb of deadly, unsafe human compassion.

What then?

There is no ideology so perfect it can take precedent over basic human compassion. How can you promote the religion of Jesus in one breath and advocate against healing the sick in the next? What would Jesus of the bible (that kind hearted hippie who hung out with vagrants and wanted everyone to love each other) have to say in this situation?

But I suppose none of that matters now. The government is gone, and as far as I reckon, they ain’t coming back. Only a matter of time before Cormac’s McCarthy’s road winds through the once vibrant and beautiful streets of our land. All we left to remember our once great nation is the post office. Allelujah, brothers without leaders.