Perette Barella

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The world we live in is crackers. We spend our lives playing with handheld electronic gizmos, disconnected from what's around us. Oil proceeds fund terrorism in the middle east, but instead of moving to new fuels we have Orwellian-style perpetual wars. Under the boss's thumb, we do what we're told so we can keep our meager existences, supplementing income with credit and ensnaring ourselves in debt obligation. CEOs pay themselves $10,000,000 a year; in an hour, they'll make more than I do in 2 months. A day for them is several years toil for the rest of us; in a month, they'll earn more than I could in my entire lifetime if I slaved away coding. They use their earnings to buy politicians and rig the game in favor of the status quo, then tell us it's our own fault we're poor.

The population is unsustainable, but we completely ignore that. We think our own petty interests are important because we seek out like minds on the Internet; lack of exposure to contrary opinion gives us confidence we're right. We dismiss those with whom we disagree by finding a single flaw in their position, and use that to discredit them entirely. We hone our skills at witty put-downs that gain credit in the like-minded circles we choose, even as we lose our ability to explain our reasoning to those with different ideas.

The system is broken, and the problems in it run deep. Although we personally contribute to the problem, individually changing our behavior won't rectify it. Things will not be easily fixed; trying would be tilting at windmills.

But we also live in amazing times: We have easy access to the respository of all human knowledge via a device we carry around in our pocket. We have much liberty to be whomever we want to be. Our lives aren't run by clergy and their fraudulent gods. Food, resources and leisure time are plentiful.

So this advice I impart to you: take care of your teeth because they don't regenerate. Brush, floss, and use a good Listerine knock-off. Wear sunscreen. Take truth to heart, even when you don't like it. Claw your way out of debt if you can, and stay that way. Don't let the capitalists trap you; learn to fix everything and live on little. Don't waste your time trying to change the fools and idiots; they won't listen anyway. Spend your time enjoying life now, because it's not clear how long we're going to have the awesome things we have at this moment.

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