Reflections on our Consumption-Based Economy
We are called to be components
In a frigid, organic computer
That the answers to the wrong questions
May comfort the programmers to know that they are gods.
To destroy the precious, to ignore the beautiful,
And embrace the trivial.
To hate our friends as genuine fakes,
To kill our neighbors and say its their fault,
To act as if guided by the highest light,
While heading straight for where the bad
Has long since changed to worst.
To say that we believe the good will come
To them someday, too, while we plunge
into the darkness of our creature comforts
And slowly undulate the tempo of our being
To the rhythm of the accounting machines
To accept discipline only if it takes no will power?
Or initiative to be programmed to be functional
In the realization of undisclosed purposes and motives,
But we never know because of the insulation
Of artificial stone that protects our sensitive contacts
Which function from a fear of being replaced.
There are other sparks enclosed in shells
Whose only outlet leads to the Machine
From which comes a grotesque answer, meaning nothing.