(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Lesson Number One: Life Is Good (Boy On The Overpass Pt. 2) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-13 The Story So Far: After seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was nine I make a wish to see what I’ll be doing in 2021, thinking it would be some cool space job, only to find I’m a disheveled hippie putting a sign over a freeway that says “Science is Real.” 61 year old me is even more distraught to see my nine year old self because it means either the rules of space and time or my mind is no longer functioning and I’ve grown sentimentally attached to both. Still, it’s a golden opportunity to impart a bit of wisdom and let the poor kid know what he’s in for... Okay kid, Lesson Number One, It’s the most important lesson there is. It’s just three words but they can be awfully hard to remember sometimes: Life Is Good. Just being born who you were, when you were and what you were was like winning a trillion dollar lottery and the more you learn the more you’re going to realize it. The more you know about animals the more you’re going to appreciate being human and the more you get to know humans the more you’re going to appreciate being you. The more you learn about history the more you’ll appreciate being alive now instead of back then. I know you’re disappointed we’re not flying around in rocket ships but look at it this way: out of 12,000 generations of homo sapiens only the last hundred or so have had surgery. You live in one of about 6 that also has anesthesia. Life is good. I’m going to quickly run through the rest of your childhood - please try to save your questions until the end. In a couple of months you’re going to move to a new house in a different city. It’ll be about five miles from the beach and in a year or two you’ll be able to ride your bike there. The beach has good waves and get this - the house will have a swimming pool. A real one. You’ll start going to a new school with a bunch of rich kids, but they’ll seem just like normal kids. And even though you’re new there they’ll all be really nice. So will your teacher. You’ll make friends with a guy named Brad and he’s going to show you where the good bike trails and jumps are after school. Everything’s going to be great at that school for about ten days. Then it’s going to suck for the next six years. Here’s why: You’ll be talking to Brad about a movie on TV and a kid who’s listening in is going to find out you don’t have a color TV and immediately starts spreading the word. It turns out the poverty line for that school is just beneath “Color TV.” This will make you officially “poor” which will in turn make you officially an outsider — something that some of the kids in that all-white school have been waiting for for awhile. “Our President appears to be working for Vladimir Putin.” (2018) Being an outsider for any reason means that you’re gay (not really, that’s just what they’ll call you) and strips you of pretty much all social protections, including making fun of your last name, which they’ll change, predictably to “Ni**er.” You’re going to go from being a straight white middle class kid to a poor ni**er faggot in the space of just one day, and yes, believe it or not it’s gonna stay like that for the next six years. The next year Dad’s going to run for congress and you’re going to find out the only thing worse than being a poor gay black child at that school is one who’s a Democrat. What had been primarily name calling and humiliation will start to include more physical attacks and beatings during the election year. Dad’s going to win the primary, and despite the fact it’s going to assure that the same bullshit starts up again after summer vacation, you’re going to be proud as hell of him. You’re always going to be proud of him, and the rest of your family no matter what. Although it’s going to seem like everyone in your grade is an asshole, it’s really just six kids who do all the dirty work. The rest will quietly keep to themselves. You’ll understand it, but you won’t be able to help seeing their silence as a form of assent. As time passes and your treatment becomes normalized, it essentially becomes assent. You’ll find the same dynamic works in groups of any size, and that a few loudmouthed assholes can easily become the voice of a nation. When you look back on it you’ll realize the one and only reason that school sucked was a handful of assholes who needed a scapegoat. If it wasn’t for them everything would’ve been just fine. That turns out to be a valuable education, because you’re going to find there’s a great big beautiful world out there waiting for you and it’s damn near perfect… except for a small group of lying assholes who keep fucking it up. They always need a scapegoat and I swear to God kid: They are almost always Republicans. Any questions?” 2019 “The kids at school. Do you remember their names?” “Believe me , you will always remember their names...” “Good.” “It’s not likely they’ll remember ours though, which can really play hell with revenge fantasies. The Day of Reckoning finally arrives and vengeance is about to be yours, but when you say your name it’s meaningless to them. They just shrug and say something like “I’m sorry, but I’m drawing an absolute blank…” And of course that’s no fun. The whole thing’s pointless if they don’t know who you are or what it’s all about. But when you realize the only way to remind them is to identify yourself as ‘Faggot…’ well… it kind of ruins the fantasy.” “Yes, I can see how it would.” 2018 Don’t worry about revenge kid, it’ll take care of itself. You’re going to find yourself wishing they’d just take their boats and cars and country club memberships and shove them all up their noses. But that’s because you’re young. Later on you’ll think they should shove it all up their asses where it belongs. But then the 80s will come around and you’ll realize you were actually right the first time.” “Huh?” “Cocaine… It’s a drug thing.” “Oh.” “I think between the two of us drugs are the elephant tranquilizer in the room. I know you think I’m here because I took too many drugs, and I’m almost certain that’s why you’re here, but we’ll have to hash all that out later. I remember back around your age I thought I’d never ever do drugs, but I also thought girls were boring and predictable and that being in a club for Corvette owners would be interesting and fun. Trust me: things change. Once you get out of there though, things will get a lot better. In fact, for the next twenty-five years or so each day is gonna be better than the last. Little by little you’ll start to realize how massive the jackpot was you hit just by being born a human being on this planet. Unfortunately you and everyone else who hit that jackpot will have to deal with the fact that it could all disappear in a flash because a small group of lying Republican assholes needed a scapegoat. “We’re being attacked by Russia. Pick a side.” 2019 Don’t worry if that sounds nutty and paranoid: I know it does. It’s gonna take everything you’ve got not to look at all this in terms of Good Vs. Evil - because that’s the kind of simple-minded fairytale bullshit the Republicans and Jesus people are always spewing. It’s been a lifelong battle to keep from thinking like that kid, and at this point I’m afraid it’s one we’re gonna lose. For twenty five years or so you’re going to be able to just live, and like I said Life is Good. You’ll be able to work, play, travel, love, hate, triumph, fail… the whole shebang. You’re going to find there’s a basic choice in life: you can accumulate either experiences or stuff. You’re going to choose experiences, partly because that school didn’t speak well for material acquisition, but mostly because you’re restless and you like to travel. You can only look at things for so long though, and you can only learn so much about this world before you realize you have to DO something about it. You’re going to find out what you were meant to do almost entirely by accident. You’ll approach it as if it was another adventure, but on your way back you’ll realize it was far and away the most useful thing you’d ever done in your life. And at that point you’ll have seen enough to define “useful” as “anything that alleviates human misery.” The task itself is simple: take from the rich and give to the poor. But what you take and where you take it is crucial, and when you live in Southern California with a pickup truck the answer is to take warm clothes to villages in the Sierra Madre highlands in Mexico. Clothes last for years and condense well, and you’ve gotten good at negotiating with border officials. You’ll find that utilizing your skills and resources to their maximum efficiency in order to help the greatest number of the neediest people possible is a feeling like no other, and more addictive than any drug. Once you get a taste of what it’s like it’s very difficult to do anything else. For the first time you feel like you’re exactly where you belong, doing precisely what you’re meant to do and I swear, it’s like the whole world starts to open up for you. You ask Paul Newman for ten-thousand dollars, he gives you twenty-thousand. Someone’s moving and asks if you’ll take over their lease and you say hell yes! Now you’re living in an eleven room mansion for $200 more a month than your one bedroom apartment. And after a lifetime playing through more false starts, mixed signals and failed relationships than an Oklahoma jukebox, you ask the most wonderful girl in the world to be your wife and she says yes. Now I know what you’re thinking: You’re thinking that somehow a small group of lying Republican assholes are gonna fuck it all up somehow because they need a scapegoat. Well, you’re wrong. Granted, a small group of lying Republican assholes is going to fuck it all up, sure... but it’s just to steal an election — no scapegoats were really involved. Unless you count this one... In the year 2000 it looked like we were getting dangerously close to having yet another really smart guy become President of the United States, and higher ups in the Republican establishment apparently had their hearts set on seeing what it would be like if we had a kind of dumb guy as President instead. As much as we’d have liked to continue ignoring them, stealing an election was a bridge too far: vacation time is over, time to go back to school. Aw gee, willya look at that? — a whole bunch of people who don’t even know us apparently hate us! Just like old times. I wonder if a handful of assholes has been lying about us while we were gone... Let’s see what’s on TV, shall we? “Fox News: Lying To Americans About Americans For 25 Years” (2022) Anyway kiddo, this is where your life stops getting better and better and starts getting weirder and weirder instead.” To be continued... “People should try to stop voting for people who try to stop people from voting.” (2022) Signs below were posted in January 2022 (I’m trying to catch up) [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/13/2198909/-Lesson-Number-One-Life-Is-Good-Boy-On-The-Overpass-Pt-2?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/