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The main thing filling mindscape while listening to this was the despicable cynicism rampant in our bent society. I have never been impressed by optimistic people, not because optimism sucks, but because 99% of the time it springs from someone who uses it to be found darling in the eyes of everyone around them. It's not real. It's just a way to baffle conflict before it might arise. Only people willing to be perceived as total fuckheads will ignore your tender and sunny heart and point out how full of shit you are.
Still, cynicism can provide similar perks if done correctly... especially if you bat your eyelashes and giggle a lot while recklessly eviscerating what is good and decent and, worst of all, not you. If you just mumble morosely some snide remarks, people will at worst find you a bit on the depressive side, but if you couch your envy in such a way as to, say, stroke the brimming dubiety among the denizens of alternative news — since this demographic is rife with lazy and/or busy people who fancy themselves intellectually superior — your motive envy might be disguised sufficiently to enhance your image. Even if your slip is showing while you are doing it, the chances are good that those who notice it will end up overlooking it in favor of not coming off as some kind of credulous dupe who was only born yesterday. Plus pouty painted lips.
Historically, cynicism has also made for some spectacularly entertaining satire. Generates wildly more creativity than optimism. Ask any writer. It is difficult to write anything when you are happy. There's nothing to say but oh rapturous yay. Gloom, grief, agony, displeasure, hatred, offended sensibilities, on the other hand, are bottomless fountains of inspiration. Ask a film critic. They hate reviewing movies they love. They love reviewing movies they hate. Books. Food. Whatever. We tend toward quiescence when we're happy, content. We get noisy when we're miserable. Often the very noisiest people are the ones who are so ashamed of themselves they are never not miserable.
It can make them manic when it is particularly intense. Everybody gets that part wrong. Mania is more depressed than depressed. And hypnotized nitwits do not grok that the struggle to escape it never stops becoming more fervent until you stop and let it catch you. The only way you can live through it is to face it down and learn first hand that it won't kill you.
We all need to be able to appreciate real merit, quit defaulting to the cloaking devices of intellectual cowards. That way lies depletion. Only. Whether you go with it and stolidly ignore how rotten and hypocritical and loveless it is, or just quietly turn away demoralized. It's the vitality sink of life as a full grown human. It is, indeed, why the psychopaths keep dumping mountains of awful slime on us without letup.
Listen carefully to this. Please. There are bits of vital information in it, and you have to, have to, have to get it completely straight in your mind that Braveheart and Gladiator and Kiss of the Spider Woman are not just movies.
