Something which has been irritating me recently is materialism... and by recently, i mean for the last 5 or 8 years. To be more specific though i can't stop thinking about status symbols. We've been in this downward spiral ever since the first Egyptian decided he was going to work hundreds of people to their deaths just to build some overstated gaudy pile of rubble to bury himself under in the vague hope that it would make people remember him after he's dead and gone. The fact is that once you're dead, you really are gone. People might remember one lonesome facet of your existence, that you were a good warrior or thinker or that you were some total cunt who worked hundreds of people to their deaths just to build some overstated gaudy pile of rubble to bury himself under. But you - that vague temporary alignment of matter and energy to which we attach such lofty heights of worth - will be no more. And no, i'm not being a pessimist or anything. That is a good thing.

Well i suppose at least now we've moved on to trying to impress people while we're still alive (at least most of us have). But it still seems pretty pointless to me. Why is it that some people will take out a loan to buy something - like a flashy car or some new and discracefully expensive clothes - which is so divorced from the original practical purpose that it once had as to become truly worthy of that most derrogotary of definitions: status symbol? It seems to me that people cling so desperately to that little scrap of individual identity which they are left with in this increasingly homogenized world of ours that they forget what it's for. So instead of being open and proud of what it is that makes you you, you hide it away behind a mask of conformity and a hopeless grasping at acceptance, preserving your precious piece of personality, leaving it to wither and die as you mold yourself into just some over-simplified piece of moulded pseudo-humanity. You search through the existing patterns and moulds provided by society - brain, body, beauty, rebel, basketcase - and find a few which seem vaguely suited to your real self. Then you add a few essentials like nationality, gender and sexuality into the mix and present this bestial mask to the world as your true self, slowly convincing yourself and everyone around you that this is somehow your real identity, all the while losing your grip on that shred of existence, of uniqueness, losing yourself to the ever encroaching machine of false humanity which spreads so insipidly throughout this sick and twisted society.

But you can't keep it up, even if you convince your consciousness of this awful fallacy, there are still bits of your brain which remember the real you and from time to time one of these bits will creep up and remind you of who you really are. What can you do when that happens? You crash and crumble under the pressure of that knowledge. The terrible knowledge that you are just another mindless automaton stalking these heartless streets, lost in a world of bitter emptiness. What can you do? Either you pick up the broken pieces of your mask, put it back together, maybe make a few modifications. Then you carry on where you left off, switch back to that automatic day to day moribund monotony and as the saying goes: get on with your life. Or you don't... and that's the real experiment.

Hmm... that just kept on coming didn't it... and i'm not even high...