We listen to the ads on our flatscreen TVs,
Telling us we need this, or how we deserve that.
No wonder everyone's driving a big red truck.
Working for something used to be called "delayed gratification";
Earning what we could in order to get what we really needed.
But as the years have gone by, somewhere in there,
the value of "value" has changed;
debt became our master,
and we lost our souls.
Delayed gratification became instant gratification became entitlement,
And we consumed our way into an abysmal pit.
The blackness spreading on the back of the lie
that "more will satisfy",
Where the "greater good" and our "fellow man" are shoved under the carpet called "MINE",
That gets more plush, more thick, more (blood) stain resistant, and more smothering as the generations pass by.
We stand back and watch as corrupt old men buy their way into power.
We recognize the greed.
By doing nothing, we acknowledge and validate the all-consuming, blood-thirsty hunger behind it all...
We might even find ways to justify it in our own warped and broken minds.
But then, someone notices the bodies left in their wake...
living and breathing,
lonely and bleeding,
suffering bodies.
And we have to wonder, how did we go so far? How have we let it get so far gone?
When year after year of people seeking and buying what they want,
(and mortgaging their future to get it)
we wonder why our children aren't satisfied by anything we have to give anymore.
After decades of darkening backdoor deals to obtain whatever goods our dark hearts desire,
we wonder why our daughters are being sold into black market slavery,
and we wonder why our sons are the ones forking over the cash.
After years of filling our grocery carts, and our homes;
with a system that supports us,
and a collective identity that ignores those who can't,
It's no wonder that homelessness and hunger and destitution are spreading like a smoldering prairie wildfire.
As our cars and our clothes and our homes become more opulent,
It's no wonder the cycle of poverty continues to gain speed on its devastating tracks.
After years of allowing our offenses to drive us (instead of common sense),
It's no wonder that at the beginning and the end of the day, the only person we view as important is our self.
What if it's like Newton's third law of physics: that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, except with people?
Human beings.
Sons and daughters,
mothers and fathers,
sisters and brothers,
husbands and wives...
If this is the case,that something I do, or something I want, or something I buy, affects someone else in an equal and opposite way...
If I find myself in the mentality of consuming, the mentality of chasing things,
then it's really me who's hurting someone else.
When I get that thing I want, the equal and opposite reaction is that someone else doesn't get what they need.
It's no wonder then,
that the day the world started falling apart
is the day we forgot our neighbor.
