Anxiety and Loneliness at the Heart of the Empire

June 2021
Ocean Beach, San Diego

It was here that I imagined a future for myself. The west coast, the edge of the continent, the manifestation of my own destiny. But this place is not for me. It’s for them. Those happy-go-lucky folks that always seem to be on the right side of the status quo, reclining comfortably in the shade of ivory towers and generational inheritance. They look like they stepped out of an instagram post and into our piss-soaked, overpriced reality. I would be complaining about this to my friend, but I don’t have one right now—at least, not with me.

Waves crash down on some of America’s finest folk, surfers. They deserve to be here, along with their vans and wetsuits and soggy joints and good attitudes. But a few thousand feet above me and them, a flight departs with a couple hundred people on their way to some place less Instagramable. They are packed like cattle and cold like sardines. They’re the ass end of a rigged economy. At the same time, a squad of boys are out for a sunset cruise just above the horizon. Their chinook is more spacious than economy class, and has a better view. They can fly themselves, as they are the benefactors of multi-trillion dollar programs. For their service they receive free education, lifetime healthcare*, a shoutout at major sporting events, and eternal recognition. Those programs paid for by the poor sardines in the flying tin can. I guess that’s what you get for total submission to Uncle Sam. The rest of us, “free people”, have no choice but to pay for those programs and are forced to duke it out for our basic needs, rotting away at jobs inside decomposing corporations. We are all bound to this American Damnata. 

“It could be worse.” Someone will say. Yes, it could always be worse, that’s a great excuse to do nothing, because you should be grateful for what you have. After all, you can’t get everything you want––you can barely get what you need anymore. At this point, that tired idiom is sickening. Everyone before us was spoiled rotten, so why are you complaining? This is the greatest place on earth. You should be grateful that you can come here and enjoy a nice day at the beach. You don’t know how good you have it, you spoiled brat. Be happy that you live in a free country, appreciate what you are allowed to do and where you are allowed to be. A lot of people have it a lot worse than you. You could get deployed like those boys in the choppers. They suffer and give their lives so that you can lounge on the beach and get fat in this land of hedonism. You could be homeless, displaced, dispatched, disenfranchised, disabled, or incarnated in one of our many, highly-profitable prisons. You could get shot by an unregistered firearm, run down by a Youtuber in his Lambo, you could catch a stray from an officer just trying to get home to beat his wife and kids. You could get held up at gunpoint by some cartel member, or get evicted from your home because your landlord wants to make 3% more profit this year, you could lose your livelihood because a number on a screen went down, or cannibalized by a pack of mongrel migrants, shot up by an incel with mommy issues, run down by a tweaker racing to their next high. You could be taken hostage by ISIS––aren’t you glad we spent two decades and untold trillions solving that problem? Mission Accomplished. You could be raped in prison, or renditioned to Guantanamo. You could slip and fall on an ice pick, or get trapped in a cybernetic panopticon––Oh! Things could be worse, bucko! So why don’t you just pipe down and let us fly the plane, okay? Do your duty: vote, tweet, consume, and shut up. 

This is what they shout at us from their telescreens. It’s the white noise that fills the space between our AirPods, the anthem of the meat grinder, the whir of history’s gears churning our brothers and mothers into a smooth, marketable paste. We have manifested so much destiny that the entire world has gone West. They have discovered and accepted the dominion of the Dollar. The world speaks our language now, but we wrote the dictionary, and we don’t speak softly anymore. All we do is lust after bigger and bigger sticks, like a porn addict frantically squeezing the rubber bulb of his penis pump to further engorge himself. We are desperate for something harder, more stimulating, bigger. Bigger! It could always be bigger! How ‘bout that! Things could always be BIGGER! You could always be hotter, you ugly sack. You can always be stronger, weakling. You should be more attractive, taller, richer, smoother, thinner. You could have one more, another shot, just one more hit, another drag, another house, a cooler car, a more just war. You’ll get another vote too, and that one could change the world. You have to hope, at least. Don’t you? So do your duty: vote more, tweet more, consume more, and shut the fuck up so I can hear the eagle screech.

Look at me, getting carried away talking about god and the Great Lie. This was supposed to be a day at the beach, wasn’t it? Relax, let loose, enjoy the spoils of the global war machine. I mean, come on. We have weight loss pills and dishwashers that sing to you. What more could you ask for?