Perpetual Motion

I have never claimed any “moral high ground,” because there is no such thing. I’m no hypocrite, but I’m no fool, either. I know my level of participation.

Look at them. Look at them walk around, oblivious drones, doing the queen’s bidding like clockwork. And what is their queen but their vice-of-the-moment? You can practically smell their weaknesses emanating from them in waves as they brush past you.

Attempting to numb the pain of their soulless lives, they have created a cycle of greed, apathy, and self-destruction. Shuffling through lingerie shops and fast food joints like suburbanite lemmings, unable to resist even the slightest carnal temptation, become slaves to their impulses, living only to satisfy their basest, most immediate urges. Never looking up to see where they’re going, simply following the beaten path with reckless abandon. Never gravitating towards any semblance of balance, only serving themselves another heaping spoonful of unimaginative imitation comfort. Suffocating in the stench of their own banality.

The city is rank with it.

Killing time has become a pastime in itself.

Look at their sycophantic smiles, see the transparency of their courtesy, followed immediately by the stolen glances towards a well-endowed young lady’s cleavage as she is distracted by her text messages. The telltale nostril flares of dormant, unjustifiable rage towards the cashier. The automatic, unthinking vilification of everyone else behind the wheel of a car, expressed quite theatrically through flailing arm motions. The flagrant disregard for every other soul around them, because everyone is the center of his or her own pallid universe.

It’s a psychogenic smog, the aggregate of infinite variations on a theme of decadence.

Look at the non-reflective sea of semiconscious locusts.

For all they know, however, I am just like them. For all they care, I am nothing but another face in the crowd, another mindless drone who is just in their way. But I take the time to observe and record. Is that my pastime? Does that make me a hypocrite? Am I judgmental if I’m speaking in broad terms? How can I be a hypocrite if I openly analyze how much I have in common with those for whom I have such contempt? So I am no hypocrite. I appreciate a burger and a beer as much as the next guy. I like mainstream movies, black coffee, and scented candles. But I’m not a slave to indulgence. I know when it’s A Time To Dance and I know when it’s A Time To Endure.

Unlike them, I know the value of self-restraint and deprivation.

I’m no fool. I know the difference between “pleasure” and “joy.” I have a frame of reference. I also know what I look like to a dismissive, superficial passer-by. In fact, I thrive on that anonymity. I know what I’m doing…

”This town needs an enema…”