Every single one of us. We all have it. No one is immune. And no one gets out alive. And we all know it. We like to pretend it isn't so. We fill our days and nights with distractions. We try to ignore it. We go to elaborate lengths to deny it. We hide from it. We Botox the signs, erase the lines. Trim it, tuck it, suck it out and lift it. We run from the truth that life is terminal. But we are all infected.
And at the end of the day, there is no denying it. There is no escaping this self-evident truth. There is no grand bargain to be made. No deal with any devil . There is no white knight coming to bestow everlasting life on us. We don't get second chances at this. We get one shot. One life. Just one. So ask yourself, why the hell are we allowing it to be so hellish for so many?
Why aren't we all protesting the rampant injustice and revolting inequities of our system? How did "they" get us all to stand by like sheep while the banksters stole our retirement, hijacked our children's futures and those self-same market makers who told Congress they had no fiduciary duty to safeguard our life savings played economic roulette with the fruits of our labor?
How did we become zombies more concerned with who wins some stupid reality show or silly game than with who is running our school districts and Judicial system? How did our national psyche get so perverted we care more about some woman who "broke" the internet with a photo of her bottom than we do about how companies are corrupting and contaminating our planet while they are manipulating their bottom lines and hiding billions in offshore banks while bilking taxpayers for their welfare entitlements, mansions and yachts?
Why are we allowing schools to do random searches, breathalyze students and have practices on how to hide from random shooters, but we can't have background checks or basic safety regulation for the guns used to massacre and create havoc? How is it that state legislatures can insist they have every right to infringe on any woman's rights while they pay us less but we have no right to see who is paying for the right to influence our members of Congress? We are teaching our children to be afraid of possibilities while their opportunities are being shut down and we allow our students to be indentured and indebted to the banks that are too big to fail but not too greedy to steal their futures. We teach our children to accept unconstitutional searches and seizures while we deny medical marijuana for the treatment of actual seizures and push for-profit everything to maximize the misery of the many so the few can get even richer.
And if all this isn't enough to make you sick, I'm here to tell you, the decay is accelerating. It seems as if the rot is spreading its putrid pestilence as we allow institutionalized poverty to pervade our humanity. We've created a monster with horrific capabilities and catastrophic economic implications.
And to what end? What does it matter? Since we are all infected what is to be gained by those few who are amassing great wealth at grievous cost to the greater majority of us? Do they get to live longer? Maybe. But make no mistake, they are definitely getting to live better. With more dignity. More leisure. More ease and comfort. They live behind their walls with paid protection and plenty of everything to ease their dying days. This isn't about "hating" the rich. Or wanting a redistribution of wealth. It is about life. And death. And what happens in between. Because we are all indeed infected.
And I think this is why I've been so fascinated by The Walking Dead. The show that shows the figurative interpretation of modern life in the time of an apocalyptic event. There is no denying the inevitable misery of life in this noir tale. Or the everlasting reality of death. The fight for survival we can never win for long it seems. And it is a metaphor for what we have allowed our world to become.
We are indeed the walking dead. Zombies blindly shuffling down roads, through broken cities and abandoned towns. Staring at meaningless boxes, hearing the monotonous moans of the drones, the hateful screeches of the frightened running from the death that will take us all. Because we are all infected.