You can say what you want about man. You can say what you want about human nature. You can say what you want about civilization.

But no matter what you say, no matter how damning and demeaning, no matter how accurate and true, in the end, you still can't deny that we, as a species and as a civilization, have come a long long way from "Let them eat cake!" to "Windows has encountered a fatal error and must shut down."

The race to innocuousness had begun. Everyone spun around rapidly in place, trying to see who could screw himself the farthest into the earth the fastest.

The rules of this race were a fucking mess. But if they'd been clean and crisp and clear nobody would've believed them because everybody knows that truth doesn't express itself in clear, simple sentences.

And so, though NOT being a fucking mess would have GUARANTEED that the rules of this race couldn't possibly be true, BEING a fucking mess only guarantees that the rules of this race are NOT GUARANTEED to be false, but definitely NOT that they're GUARANTEED to be true.

But then someone pointed out that racing is not ABOUT truth anyway, so who fucking cares.

He held his family at bay with the shotgun. His daughter said it doesn't have to be this way. A plane circled overhead. A voice from it over a bullhorn seconded her point.

The pilot sat in the copilot seat, listening to flight attendant radio. The flight attendants stood in the bathroom, listening to passenger radio. The passengers sat in the cargo bay, listening to those assholes on ground radio.

We are all just casualties I said as the plane descended unexpectedly, without power, without a word from the pilot or crew.

No we aren't he said.

Or at least, we weren't till you said that, he corrected himself.

Despite all this intentionally misleading bullshit about 99% shared DNA, what we all REALLY have in common is that no matter who we are or what or where we are -- we are all, each of us, just a single little tiny blip on the surface of the earth, whether we are standing or sitting or lying down, full of life or near death, alone or with 1 person or 2 people or thousands, inside or outside, in a room, on a mountain top, underwater, in a field, in a barn, in a factory, halfway up a skyscraper, in a car, with control over millions of troops, directing a small department or indie film, or barely in control of self.

And so I sat there now, a blip on the surface of the earth. Ahead of me was Mexico, South America, Antarctica. To my right, the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii, Japan, Asia, Russia, the Middle East. Behind me was California, Oregon, Washington, Canada, Alaska, the North Pole. To my left was America, the Atlantic Ocean, Scandinavia, Europe, the Balkans, Africa.

And there wasn't a single thing happening anywhere out there in the overrated rest of the world that wasn't already happening far better and more honestly in my fucking baby toe.

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