Shades of Gray

so many people
forfeit their humanity,
monsters in disguise

—a haiku by the warrior bard


I have had enough of people getting away with everything. I have had enough of people abusing their positions of power or authority. I have had enough of the finger-pointing and buck-passing that is so characteristic of the people of this country. I have had enough of people making an already abysmal status quo all the more miserable for their fellow man. I’m talking about everyone from the bigwig, white-collar criminals to the zero-accountability, punk-ass teenagers lucky to even be allowed in public school. You break the rules we agreed upon as a society, you pay the price. Oh, but I’m being judgmental. No, no, I’m not—I’m just demanding that others be held to the same standard as I am. Isn’t that fair? To have only one standard? Hm?

After learning of a series of corrupt people’s exploits, I voiced a little of my mounting disdain to my parents last night, saying that there will come a time when these people pay. They will get their comeuppance. The only thing preventing me from dishing it out myself is funding.

But seriously. All I hear is how fucked up the world is, how people exploit each other… during a time of economic crisis. Bosses throwing ethics out the window because they know their workers need the job and will put up with a lot. That is not just corrupt, it’s plain evil, a gross abuse of power. It seems that a lot of people in power are greedy, sleazy, selfish, wicked beings, screwing over the very people they depend on because they can. It has happened to… let’s see… oh, counting myself, three people in my immediate family.

I have lived a good life. Despite my misanthropic, scathing tone on the blog, I have never hurt anybody. Despite my supposed tendency to spew bile and vitriol, I have done my best to, as the good Captain says, “try to leave the world in a better place than you found it.”

I’m not saying I am a good person. But I haven’t broken any laws and I think about more than just myself. Constantly. I am, at the very least, not part of the problem. I used to be a good role model, an honorable karateka and overall upstanding human being. I lost something of myself in the past few years, though… and most of my suffering these past few years is a direct result of doing the “right thing” when it was inconvenient.

I didn’t say I was a good person; there is no moral high ground left to claim anymore. But I am sick of the real villains running free.

I have had enough. If course, there’s nothing I can do about it except vent my frustrations every now and then. By saying “enough already,” nothing at all will change, because I haven’t the power or the resources to take arms against a sea of troubles and, opposing, end them.

Every time I hear about someone like Bernie Madoff getting busted, my response is two-fold: first, I am furious that evil men like this manage to do what they’ve done; second, I am glad that they were caught so that they can’t do it anymore.

It’s about time there was some sort of retribution for all these contemptible sacks of meat, these self-absorbed fist-fornicators.

I’ve had enough. There’s not enough good left to talk about. Too much hardship, too much waiting, too much clinging onto a dying ember of hope, too much wickedness of man, too much greed and exploitation perpetrated by the upper echelons and subterranean tendrils alike.

My sister’s boss is everything I despise about upper class Americans who trade their ethics for more power to abuse. Since there are already several lawsuits pending against the prick, it’s not really my place to say any more. But I will say this: he’s on my List. He’s somewhere in the middle (it is, admittedly, a long list), somewhere around the rank of that guy who tried to steal the pikey’s identity a couple years back. When I get the funding to pull off this elaborate saga of retribution, I am personally going to cut his balls off.

When the status quo is put back into a comfortable place, I promise you, We the People are going to start tying nooses for those who caused these problems. And for those who profited from them.

But I’m just a guy with no power or resources. I’m just begging for table scraps here at the bottom of the totem pole, trying to remember what blue skies once looked like, for the sky has become just as unclear as the morality of this country: nothing but shades of gray.