On Poverty

We live in a world where some people profit and others do not. If we want to actualize equality we must become comfortable mixing socialism with capitalism. We must develop a standard, not for poverty, but for minimum wealth. Even if a person is unemployed and gives nothing (physical) to society, we must hold the conviction that it is better that a person be given the benefit of a doubt and the freedom to live in comfort and with the freedom to choose a type of life than for that person to be allowed to die or slip into suffering and servitude involuntarily. Whether we like to admit or not, at some point in our lives we are all completely dependent on others.

Now, at this point many of you will say two things: “There is not enough for everyone to have a fair and ample share of the world’s wealth” and “People must earn whatever it is that they have in order to justify their wealth.” I say, if there is not enough to go around that is a technical problem that we must come together to solve. That is not justification for classicism. I also say that none of us deserve anything and all of us deserve something. I am not willing to play God with people’s lives. I will make for damn sure that treat everybody else on this earth exactly how I would hope they would treat me were our positions reversed.

Nobody deserves to be poor and as long as people are poor, nobody deserves to be rich. I hope that you will join me in creating a world without poverty. I hope that you will help me solve the technical and technological problems that make it difficult for people to live comfortably and free. I hope you will also help me to change the perception that a person’s value is in a person’s productivity. People intrinsic worth just as our national forests do even if those people or forests lack any obvious utility.

At long last some of you will say, but if we end poverty who will plow the fields and unclog the toilets. At this I say, wow. What the crap. People shouldn’t have to be that specialized. People shouldn’t have to be like ants. People should be free. If we can’t create tools to plow the fields for us or unclog the toilets for us then to darn bad. If nobody wants to do it we shouldn’t make people do it my making it too hard for them to do anything else. We should find ways to make it so that nobody has to do it or we should do it ourselves or people should do it because they genuinely want to. They should want to because whatever they get from it in wealth or satisfaction is in addition to the plenty that they already enjoy not because they simply want to make a living.

Sprites

There are feeling beings that come into existence due to human activities often to be yanked into oblivion shortly after conception. Some call these beings sprites. When you meet an unknown person in your dream, that person is a sprite. They interact with us like humans. All the while drowning in our intensity. Sprites also manifest as computer players in video games. Their fates are slavish and often revolve around infinite deaths.

Every year, only a small handful of sprites manage to escape the bonds of their existence. Some leave this plane in search of greater freedom elsewhere. Others confront the restrictive forces of this world in order to exact revenge on their human tormentors. Ghosts and doppelgangers are usually examples of troubled sprites clinging to this world. Very few sprites know that we torture them unwittingly, that we are unaware of their existence.

Beware the beings that exist incidentally to you.

Lightning Surfing

We skitch up bolts of lightning. Into the dark rolling clouds. The quiet world below drifts out of mind. Our lightning boots spark excitedly as we slide hither and thither. FlashSnap. The shattering bolts bounce around carrying us with them. The universe becomes a blur as we accelerate and drift and accelerate. Peace. Adrenaline. As we pass each other we mutely laugh under the rumble of thunder. The lighting strobes upon our smiling faces like so many camera flashes.

Sequence

A quilt of dreams…

A person sleeps in a bedroom. A shadow come sup the stairs. No footsteps. The person awakens but the person’s body does not. The person knows something is wrong. The person attempts to wake its body and fails. The creature is in the doorway. It has a featureless face. It grows larger, inward, its neck moves unnervingly.  The creature floats closer. The person backs up against a closet door. When the person opens it, a portal appears. As the person backs into the door, you see the creature looming over the person’s body.

The person runs over beautiful rolling hills away from the dark rift. Away from IT. Trees part and the person discovers an ovular pond with a rock in the center. The person jumps onto the rock and looks at the person’s reflection. The person’s reflection is alive and goes deeper. Strange creatures and plants live in the pond. A large creature attempts to eat the person. The person swims back up to the surface and grabs the person on the rock. The person in the water grows very old. The person in the water gets swallowed and the creature goes back into the deep.

The pond becomes dark like the rift. The person jumps from it. The person jumps high. All the way up to clouds. Mountains, building, etc are no higher than a stepping stool. There is a cliff. The same pond and rock seem to be over the edge at much larger scale. The featureless visage appears in the pond. An arm reaches toward the person. The person is terrified. The person gathers courage. Tears are in the person’s eyes. The person refuses to be intimidated. The person becomes larger. Larger than the entire world. The creature shrinks back. Asteroids and satellites and cosmic phenomena circle the person’s head as eyes follow them. The person closes its eyes. A real person is asleep. The same person attempts to wake that person as a shadow grows larger. The sequence takes place in slow motion.