AGE OF PESSIMISM

An age when Beliefs, love, relationships and hope are all ideals that crave to indulge our optimistic nature that there is really something better out there, that the state of our present existence cannot possibly be all that we were meant to attain. That there is essentially some good, maybe not of the toe curling mind tingling capacity, but of the feeling greater than satisfaction, because come to think of it, satisfaction is all about settling. Is there ever a point when one is justified in resting on his laurels? The answer the world provides us is that the endless stratification of everything in and about the world we live in propels us to always look for the next step. Why else would a seemingly perfect couple cheat? Why else would someone who has lost the capacity to love enter into a relationship of convenience and steadfastly refuse to move on. Hell, what drives the CEOs the Chairmen, president? Have we ever questioned why no two people look at love, relationships and cheating in the same light? No two people have the same opinion what a successful career is and definitely no two people can provide the same answer that we all steadfastly seek, what is that one thing that we can attain to which will make us contentedly happy?

An age of Perceptions and psychoanalysis. There have always been express sentiments against caring about what people say about us while at the same time everything we say do and even sometimes think is based on how people will perceive us. Decisions from what to name your baby, whether or not you sleep with someone on the first date or not, whether or not you choose an acceptable reason to end a prolonged romantic entanglement, what subjects we choose on research papers, whether or not we say I do because we are scared that such an opportunity may never present itself to how a nation should respond to threats both internally and externally are based on perceptions.

An age when heroism is mocked and bravery is overrated. For giving up less than a percent of your salary to a good cause you are considered a hero. Never a day passes when we are not reminded that it takes something special for one to be a hero, super strength, super speed, ability to fly, see through objects or set them on fire. Of course it is hard to live up to the heroics of our predecessors, there are no more nations to establish, democracies to fight for, Injustices to right, lives to save…oh wait, the situations are still there, just waiting for people to step up. But it will not happen, because some people see and ignore the problems, some people see and write about the problems, some people see, try to help and end up exacerbating the problem and some people see the problem and look for ways to benefit from them. Either way, the problem remains the same or it grows worst and then we can help people so we can feel good about ourselves. At the first sign of trouble of whatever shape, we run back to our safety zones and prepare to draw up a petition when another one of our bloodthirsty and incompetent buffoon of African leaders decides they want to kill another hundred or thousand of his people so that he can buffer up that foreign bank account that he is desperately trying to bump up for the day he’s not in power when he knows that he loves power so much that he may end up dying on the throne or immediately afterwards when a bunch of the same politicians who switched parties will indict him for some crimes they all collaborated to commit.

An age when failing to tell your partner about your actions or interactions is never about protecting your partner but about your feeling of guilt. Admittedly when you do something bad and you are not guilty about it you are referred to as a psychopath but for those who do so in the name of love, they are called partners. How much so? When something is done by one party in the relationship whether at the moment the action is committed or sometime afterward, there is the opportunity for them to share that with their partner. Justifications are then needed when the party feels guilty about their action or interaction and the other party is not made fully aware of what exactly happened in the name of love, consideration for the other partner and the guise of protecting the other party. Where then were those considerations when the action or interaction was taking place?
An age when you can never really know people more than they know themselves; whatever you find out about someone is what they reveal about themselves to you. This explains why it seems so romantic when that special someone shares a secret memory with you. Why the truly closed ones always keep you at arm’s length without it seeming so and why different people oftentimes have different perceptions of us.
An age when the grass is never ultimately greener on the other side; Whether it is the greener pasture of a better developed country, the greener pasture of the arms of a convenient lover or the greener pastures of a life of ignorance and arrogance.
An age when Life sucks and you are left with the option of dealing with it or giving up when after it’s all said and done, the outcome’s still the same.