Damaged Goods

We are all ``damaged goods''. Some of us are damaged from the experiences that we had, some are born damaged in ways that we recognise. But all of us are damaged in the sense that we are mortal---we are born to live, and then to die once again, the only mortal record of our existence is that temporally-limited trail of influences we have on other mortal beings, dead or alive.

Only one perfect human existed, and even then, he was also divinity as well, for the single great rescue plan for us sinners. Sadly, this post isn't about him.

It's about how we all still need to live somehow while being ``damaged goods''.

It was easier to do so in the earliest of days, since we were a part of nature. Petty quarrels stemming from who should ``do the dishes'' had no place in a time where a moment's unawareness of the entire tribe signalled a bloody brutal end, either at the hands of some other tribe, or at the hands of the non-human animals that hunger enough to hunt the most dangerous hunter they have ever known.

Everyone understood power then---power meant the strongest, the fleetest, and anyone who could ensure the long term survival of the tribe either through healing, or good planning (foresight). Disputes could be easily (but brutally) settled with a simple fight, with the mightier one prevailing. Fights would get bloody, but it was unlikely to be fatal---the tribe would always need their strongest fighters around to defend against the other tribes after all. It was the type of law that was obeyed, and there probably wasn't much time to wax lyrical about rights and equality to the levels of abstraction beyond whatever that could be seen and touched then.

Now, most fights are abstract in nature, generally for the better. ``Might is right'' has been checked by ``legal is right'' in the past two centuries, though the original law still lurked in the shadows, waiting to come into play the moment that ``legal is right'' is no longer respected.

That last point is something that many people in recent years don't seem to ``get it'' despite being all woked and what-not. The mega-societies of today operate the way they do because we have decided to share the same hallucinations on how the abstract rules control us. The abstract rules are what keeps us from degrading into a purely instinctual form of ``jungle law'', and they only hold because we collectively choose to allow them to hold. The abstract rules can be changed---they have been changed. Unfortunately, the process of change is usually a long one, since it requires re-hallucinating the majority of society that the change is a better version, and that takes time and effort.

But all that abstract rule change hallucination mumbo-jumbo is nice and dandy only in the high-level abstract sort of way; in the end, what we will experience is still the low-level inter-personal interactions that we have. The mighty power of a country's military or even police means nothing until the said military or police starts knocking on one's own door, demanding from them actions that may not be legal/ethical.

Should one comply then?

If idealism is your schtick, then perhaps non-complying with the order might be the option you'd choose. However, the consequences of that could be injury (physical or otherwise), harassment, or even [immediate] death.

If pragmatism is your thing, then maybe compliance is the way to go, that is, until one is safe enough from immediate danger to start activating all the other checking and balancing procedures to retaliate against the order.

As they say in self-defense circles:

Not here, not now, not you.

It takes one person to realise that the system is corrupt and needs to be cleansed. But it takes the continuous effort of a substantial segment of society to actually fix the system. Those in power know this very well, and so they apply one of the oldest strategies in the book to prevent that massing of people: the old divide and conquer approach.

But I digress severely. This post wasn't supposed to be about power---it was supposed to be about people being ``damaged goods''. So let me return to that now.

Everyone's ``damaged goods'', and everyone's trying to make some meaning for themselves as they crawl about this dirt-ball generation ship travelling through space. Many try to seek their ``significant other'', looking for companionship that can last till [hopefully] the end of their journey, sharing resources and pooling talents together to form a family unit. Most don't really care how their ``significant other'' is found, they just want one, like some kind of magic genie wishing thing. Post-enlightenment folks talk about high-brow values of romance and compatibility, while everyone knows that a key feature that has been euphemised with post-facto ``values'' is that of lust. Lust. Lust of the flesh.

Feels wrong, somehow.

Eh, I'm a ``damaged goods'' myself too; it's not like I'm somehow magically better than everyone else. It does feel like that I am about to learn of a new decision point, even though I have been keeping it away with that tricky little word called ``hope''.

But that's for next time.