America’s Worst Soap Opera is almost over. Aristotle convinced our entire species of the belief that money isn’t the root of happiness. He then convinced us the key to happiness is living a virtuous life and fulfilling one’s purpose.
A purpose forced upon them by a decree of birth as punishment for the ignorant failings of their parents. Here we are, an entire civilization on the brink of chaos because 46.7% of the country’s wealth is held by 1% of the population and we’re too busy watching the worst soap opera in American history to notice.
Worst soap? It’s a crock
What an absolute crock. Nothing in life is free—not the air you breathe, the water you drink, or the streets you walk on. I’ve never seen an unhappy person sipping champagne on a yacht in the Caribbean.
While my non-existent experience of seeing anyone on a yacht, let alone their facial expression, might render that statement useless, I still stand behind it. Money doesn’t guarantee happiness, but it sure as heck makes life’s problems easier to navigate.
All soaps are the same
Everyone has problems. There’s a trauma built into every level of existence; it’s just that some people can bandage it up with a wad of cash.
We need money for the basics because we’ve lost the ability to barter—traded away by a system thick with red tape and corporate donations. Instead of having honest, direct conversations, we’re busy using religion as both shield and sword, dancing on marionette strings pulled by the greed of consumption.
Just an everyday soap opera
On my way to vote, I saw a man lying on the grass amid the election signs at the library, staring up at the sky. His serene expression contrasted sharply with the desperate cacophony of “Pick Me” signs surrounding him.
This season’s stars of America’s Worst Soap Opera—our politicians—have both sides frothing at the mouth in unhinged worship of two candidates who allowed a nation, barely out of a pandemic, to spend $15.9 billion on this circus.
If words could fix the way we relate to each other, we’d have learned to communicate eons ago. There is nothing I can say that will suddenly force society to use its collective voice for communal problems. I’m not witnessing the fall of a country, despite what the doomsday preppers say, but I am witnessing the collapse of our humanity.
Aristotle, who came from a wealthy family and taught royalty, couldn’t begin to understand poverty’s insatiable need to consume any hope of happiness. A lot of good people go to food banks; even more wake up before dawn, hoping to get a box of food before supplies run out. Those same people would give you half that box if you were hungry. Every. Single. One.
Soap opera of corporate greed
Through corporate greed, professional lobbyists, environmental protections, and legislative partnerships, the average person can’t survive on a single income without external support. Newer generations are opting out of having children because they can’t afford to provide for them, which will impact the workforce and lead to infrastructure declines, much like the current deficit in trade skills.
We’ve bound our hands and feet with the same red tape we wrapped around our mouths, electing people who sided with corporations now buying up residential properties and foreign investors snapping up the last bits of farmland not owned by billionaires. Meanwhile, America’s Worst Soap Opera distracts us with play-by-plays of elected officials ignoring the real problems of those who dared to disagree with their blind allegiance to the red or blue pill.
When you head to the voting booth this election season, I hope you vote in your best interest—and not for a storyline that doesn’t serve you.
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