Dear diary,

Slaves and illiteracy. Employees and post-literacy. 

I wonder why so few people question money. There seem to be plenty of people willing to quit their parents’ religion, but so few who are willing to do anything without monetary compensation. 

(Forget I brought these things up: I’ve already whined about them before. — Just skip this entry.)

I’m very sad, because Thanksgiving and Christmas beat me up. No: they didn’t beat me up; they ran me down. They’re not aggressive holidays; they’re more like endurance tests. I’m asked to put my personality on hold, remain still and keep quiet. Like when a pet-owner holds a treat just above the head of his dog and repeats the command “Sit!” until he’s satisfied that the animal has proved its obedience; then he drops the treat and the dog snaps it up. This is what the holidays are like to me; except there is no treat: I just leave after the ordeal.

Think about it: There are human beings who exist in this present moment, who own so much of the world that they don’t need to act in allegiance with any particular country. They could use their power to lift whole nations out of poverty, but instead they choose to ramp up the existing inhumanity, while thrusting additional nations into poverty, thus increasing the total amount of oppression in the world until it’s impossible to escape. And they do this without any qualm of conscience. I wonder what holidays these types of people celebrate. I bet they observe Thanksgiving and Christmas, just like the rest of us. (I speak as a United Statesian to other United Statesians.) I bet these ultra-powerful people are not much different than average folks. 

Fear of death holds everything together. If people weren’t so afraid of dying, they would not accept undignified living conditions. But everyone’s place in the system is so precarious that any deviation from the norm might trigger one’s downfall. So folks accept a cruel yoke and hardships because they doubt that they are deathless.

Also, if you are thinking that after you expire, there is an eternal existence awaiting you in Heaven or Hell, then you will put up with more bad treatment here in spacetime, on Earth, because you’ll reason that your reward awaits you in the beyond. But if you know that there was never any more heaven or hell than there is now, and that life itself is the leavings of many deaths, then you’ll perhaps be less likely to bow passively to an inhumane system; for you’ll say to yourself: This torment shall grind me down eventually, and once my current body stops, my spirit will undergo the Great Change, following which I’ll find myself as some fresh form occupying the same world again — if this world that I left was harmonious, then I’ll re-enter that harmony, whereas if the world was dominated by a system of torment, then I’ll re-enter torment.