What I want you to know. Which is everything.

Monday, October 23, 2006

All I'm Saying

All I'm saying is that we, as western, capitalist, selfish, wealthy Americans have our priorities completely skewed. What we fail to realize sometimes is that most things in life aren't nearly as important as we think it is. We go through life feeling like we have to do this, or we have to do that. The old saying goes, "You don't have to do anything except pay taxes and die." I would argue that you don't even have to pay taxes. Sure, you might be arrested. Or perhaps not. If you choose to live life without money you don't have to pay taxes. If you choose to be a drifter with no steady work and only doing odd jobs here and there to earn enough to eat then I'm sure that you can skirt by without any legal action. The only responsibilities we have are the ones that we choose to take on. For this reason we shouldn't complain when we are adled with business and stresses that take up our time and energy. If we didn't want the pressure we could just as easily not have taken them on. I realize that this is easier said than done. We are taught from an early age that we are only worth as much as we give back to society. Bums are lazy and rich people worked the hardest. That's the American way. I think that we all know how ridiculous and unfair that stereotype is. Anyone who is willing to stop and think for a few seconds about it, at least. And, who complains the most? Not the "bums." Not the homeless. The biggest complainers are the hard workers. Granted, it seems that the middle class (who, by the way, are still among the world's wealthiest human beings, if they live in the U.S.) are the biggest complainers. I don't really hear much complaining done by the wealthiest of the wealthy, per se, of course that may be because they don't have to complain. The world is set up to serve and cater to them. If they have to complain to get something done it falls more in line with legality than an obstacle. Generally, the more money one has, the less a request is seen as a complaint and more of a necessary change. The middle class are the one's who cannot content themselves with their riches. Because they aren't as rich as the family next door. I shouldn't pretend to know what happens in the upper tiers of economic society, but it seems that the wealthy simply don't complain, they demand. It's the difference between child asking for breakfast, which is expected, or asking for chocolate, which is a treat. When the wealthy ask for something, they are asking for breakfast. The middle-class are constantly asking for chocolate; sometimes extending great lengths to recieve the treat.

We should stop complaining about what kinds of chocolate we are recieving and the wealthy should realize that their breakfast is chocolate to most Americans and completely unattainable to the poor of the world. What we should be focused on is providing breakfast for the people in the world who cannot provide it for themselves. These people are so selfless that they don't usually even ask it for themselves. And I'm not talking about the guys on the side of the road with signs or the crack addicts that ask for "gas" money at the filling station. I'm talking about the people in Latin America or Africa or right in your own town who sleep in dirt or their cars or dirty run down ghetos. These people should be our number one priority, and yet we still have people complaining that their steak was overcooked or that a movie was bad or that someone offended them by showing their breast at a football game. There's nothing wrong with living in a comfortable society, but what's wrong when when we concern ourselves with all sorts of utterly pointless things when the basic needs of other human beings are not being met.

That's all I'm saying.

2 comments:

Nellie said...

And you said A LOT! Thanks, Kyle. I'm trying to avoid chocolate.

Mary Lou said...

Yeah! That's all I"m saying. ;-/