11 On Games

Then a day trader said, Speak to us of games.
He answered:

Some of you are poor. There is no shame in this. But shame on us, for having created a new and bitter kind of poverty. It is this impoverishment of the mind and of the soul, against which we ought to wage fierce battle.

Through play, our children become adults, and adults may once more be children. Is not the Lego truck fully recyclable into a fire station? Fain would I live in Legoland, where nothing is created that cannot be re-invented as something else. We must cease to manufacture that, for which the final intended resting place is the landfill.

Forget not that global economics is a game also. The rules were invented by the rich to keep them that way. But they are arbitrary rules and could easily be re-written from scratch.

Does the elm grow forever, until the world knows naught but shade? Do not be deceived when economists equate prosperity with economic growth. That which grows unchecked, is surely cancer.

By now the prophet had worked up some steam. The people of Orphalese read in his incessant bouncing a kind of passionate fervor, but actually, after such a long journey, the poor prophet longed to utilize a bathroom.

You are mistaken, if you believe that it is money which makes the world dance on its axis. For just like it is not energy, but free energy, which is required to do work, so it is the unequal distribution of wealth, which keeps the planet spinning. Thus to imagine a communist utopia is to imagine a world which does not rotate. Which is another way of saying that the answers to these lofty questions can never by found by substituting one ideology for another, shuffling from left to right and right to left, like an orator who forgot to relieve himself.

And now the prophet himself could bear it no longer. He had to excuse himself, and the people of Orphalese politely averted their eyes, as he pissed into the harbour. Then he resumed:

And you who would earn a living by shuffling money about, from blue chips to pork bellies and back again, I ask you this: In “making” money, what have you truly created? What is your contribution to society, even as you pad the gross domestic product, which the economic scientists take to be an indicator of our collective well-being?

10 On Air Travel

Then Achmed the travel agent said, But what of air travel?
And he answered:

It has been brought to my attention that your two national airlines are to be merged under the banner of a puppet corporation to be passed over into the hands of a foreign empire. I ask myself: Why is this so odious to the people of Orphalese?

Your national symbol is the fig leaf, is it not? It graces the tail fins of all the planes of your national airline, instilling a rare sense of national pride at every port of call. But all this is mere illusion, for your proud national carrier was privatized long ago.

And is the Jumbo Jet not a magnificent testament to the powers of engineering? That such a graceful beast should fly. Wherever you may travel, you will see these stellar griffins bearing your fig leaf for all the word to behold. And you may count your nation among the magnificent ones. And you may count your country among those favored by God.

(The crowd in general, and Achmed in particular seemed very pleased to hear this.)

And this is why there is outrage over the impending loss of your national symbol to a foreign corporate giant, though the carrier in question ceased to be national the moment the people themselves ceased to own it.

It had to be sacrificed, for it is a well known fact that public corporations cannot be profitable lest they be in the business of stripping the environment of its natural resources. Even then they have a penchant for turning in losses.

Verily this is so, for it is economic imperatives, not governments, that rule the world. Lamenting the perceived loss of your national pride is futile. The world economy is blinder than justice, controlled by no woman or man, and accountable to no one.

Here No one’s head briefly jerked to attention, roused from a mild stupor. Alas, he had not been addressed directly. The prophet still spoke:

In this world, the big fish must needs swallow the smaller ones, ad infinitum. This is unfortunate, for it is often the littlest fish that serve the needs of the people best. The colossal foreign airline that will be the ghost flying your national symbol does not represent a foreign interest, any more than it represents your interests. It is simply the bigger fish. Multinational corporations are entities unto themselves. If you crave a piece of the pie, you are always free to buy shares.

09 On Ingenuity

A consultant said, speak to us of ingenuity.
And the prophet spoke thusly:

When James Watt pioneered the steam engine, it powered a revolution. His key insight was the seemingly simple idea to separate the piston from the condensation chamber. Keeping the piston hot transformed the machine from a curious gadget into a powerful tool.

Unfortunately, as industrial society mushroomed, Watt’s machine rapidly gobbled up Europe’s forests. The solution to one problem had created an even greater challenge, and more ingenuity was called for.

The use of coal became widespread, giving rise to a new axiom: You gotta spend energy to make energy. Steam shovels dug the holes. Steam pumped the sump water out, crushed the ore, and transported whatever coal was not needed to power the machines that had helped produce it.

A concept is needed to define the relation between energy that goes in, and the energy that comes out. That concept is called the E.R.O.I. - the energy return on investment.

As our holes get deeper and deeper, and we crush the oil sands, we are rapidly heading towards an E.R.O.I. of one to one. For every barrel of oil produced, one barrel of oil will be required to produce it.

We’ve got to include the costs people! Global warming is also a cost of the energy extraction game. And the dreadful wars ! The wars to gain control of the lands through which the pipelines flow. How much oil does it take to keep a Hummer humming?

Dear people of Orphalese. This black sludge leaking from the rusty bucket behind me - we live in an age in which we are killing each other to secure its flow. Can you think of any reason to minimize its use?

We’ve reached the end stop of James Watt’s mechanical dream. It had its time, but move on we must. Ingenuity people. Ingenuity.

08 On Transportation

And then the ice-cream man said, speak to us of transportation.
And he answered and said:

Verily the world is in motion, even as the glaciers do not rest. Everything is in constant flux, transforming itself and all else in time and space.

Nature has such unnerving patience. Patiently the fig leaf is harnessing the sun’s life-giving rays, restoring a tiny bit of order to your tangled gardens.

Humans, though we too be born of nature, are less patient than our mother. We buzz about in our jolting jalopies, and floating fortresses such as the perforated bucket bobbing behind me, leaking fuel oil into your waters even as I speak.

Alas I am no efficiency expert, but I do know this. Internal combustion engines are big on explosions. These are fabulously loud, but irreversible. To wit: The faster you seek to transform your world, the less efficient you will be. Patience, people, patience. Patience, I’m afraid, is the key.

Your cars are to you the very symbol of your freedom when actually, they are the fetters that make you immobile. You would do better to see the car as the symbol of your mania. The bee does not leave its hive to collect pollen from just one plant, yet you think it nothing to fire up your engines for a million single-errand, one-stop trips.

And when you speed past a hitchhiker, do you feel a moral obligation to stop? Perhaps you should.

07 On Paranoid Delusions

Then a young schizophrenic said, Speak to us of paranoid delusions.
And he answered, saying:

Paranoia will destroy ya. And yet I do still wonder. Have we really no right to be paranoid?

For though there be no mastermind, you may yet be the victims of a conspiracy. And though the monster be faceless, it may yet be out to get you. For you are naught but a number in a file on a data bank of a gargantuan, impersonal bureaucracy. As such, is it relevant whether “they” actually exist? And if not, then try telling that to “them”.

More often than not, perceptions of reality and definitions of sanity are naught but an exercise in democracy. Verily, schizophrenia is but a break from reality. This we know to be true. But who would be the arbiter of reality? You look to me, but am I aught but a raving lunatic?

Here a brief, but uneasy dissenting murmur made it’s way through the crowd. The prophet continued unfazed:

What can it mean to be “diagnosed” with schizophrenia? In the case of mental illness, diagnosis is really no more than the attaching of names to symptoms perceived.
If my doctor should inform me that appendicitis is the cause of my abdominal pains, then I shall gladly deem this a diagnosis. But to be “diagnosed” with schizophrenia is the equivalent of being told that one is suffering from abdominal pains.

May I quote Aldous Huxley?
“They are normal not in the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society”.

Schizophrenia then is the likely result of broad thinking. Even as the beating of a butterfly’s wings is inexorably linked to the surging price of gasoline, if you are to think too intensely about the incestuous bureaucratic sludge of an unaccountable, uncaring government, you will in all likelihood get your wires crossed. Ponder this at you own peril.

06 On Vices

Now, for the first time, a child spoke up. She was Betty, a junior highschool student.
I have been thinking of taking up smoking. Speak to us of vices.
And he obliged:
Of vices I know little, but for this story of a strange place I visited long ago.

At this point the narrative was briefly interrupted by an unfortunate hacking fit on the part of the prophet. Failing to suppress the outburst, Almustafa chose to turn it to his advantage, using it to emphatically underscore the point just made. Rene Levesque would have been proud. Then he continued:

In this distant land of which I speak, all people are smokers. It is customary to nurse infants on their first cigarettes at the tender age of three, so that any healthy five year old ought to be able to smoke on his or her own. Verily, this is indeed so.
Many of the adults in this strange country of coughers and hack…
(Here the prophet was forced to underscore his narrative with yet another generous round of emphatic coughing. Some in the audience incorrectly assumed him to be doing it on purpose.)

The prophet resumed his narrative:
As I was saying (cough), many people (hack, hack) began to suspect, correctly, that theirs was not a healthy habit. Some of the visionaries among them even had visions, in which they saw themselves giving up smoking for their own well-being.

But as you may well imagine, in such a place as that, it could hardly be possible to give up smoking. Soon after my arrival, even I began to smoke. Never stopped.

Here the prophet seemed to realize that his own neglected cigarette was dying a slow death, and so quickly bummed another from someone in the front row, deftly lighting it off the butt of the old.

Children ask good, critical questions:
Why is it impossible to quit smoking, Mr. Almustafa, sir?
Don’t call me sir, spoke the prophet. I will call you Betty, and Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al.
Why is it impossible, Mr. Al?

Al said:
It is not really impossible, but surely you must have sympathy for these sons and daughters of a world empty of non-smokers. There was not a single role model, to show that it is possible for a human being not to be a smoker. Lest you forget, these people cannot remember a time ere even they themselves became addicted.
Yes sweet Betty, it is possible to break the nicotine habit, just as the Vancouver Canucks may one day break five-hundred.

But is this not strictly a theoretical possibility? Such shattering of habit would require considerable effort. It is difficult to imagine any one individual to achieve independence from that insidious drug, without a legitimately unshakable belief that success is a least possible? And from whence such a belief?

There is not a single non-smoker to be found. Within the collective memory of the town, within the collective haze of ten thousand smoldering cigarettes, there is not a glimmer of past freedom to be recalled.

And now, dear friends, I ask you: Is this not a smashing good analogy for the consumption-driven society in which you yourselves wallow day by day? Isn’t it truly? Huh? Huh?

Here the prophet paused and surveyed the crowd. The sparkle in his eyes betrayed the kind of glee a proud magician might feel, having just procured a rhinoceros from his cuff link.

The effect on the crowd, however, was a far cry from the kind which might have been induced with the aid of a cuff-link rhino. For the most part, people seemed confused and dumb-founded. The prophet took no notice, and continued in a booming voice:

Verily, consumerism is what smoking is to the addict. Regrettably we are virtually born addicted. We may have vague notions that our lifestyle is unhealthy, but unfortunately we have always lived like this. Now hear this, people of Orphalese:

Here the prophet tried to raise the decibel level one more time, but the years of smoking got the better of him. His voice began to strain, sounding hoarse and dry. Was he aware of the cigarette still smoldering seemingly forgotten in his yellow-stained hand?

Changing your lifestyles may be difficult, but not impossible. It will require great effort and strength of character from each one of you. Still, no matter how difficult it must seem to each addicted consumer among you, in the end, the reward shall be infinitely greater than the price.

If only one person were to quit smoking, in that distant land, which I hope you may never visit, Betty, for it is not all that pretty, the effect would barely be felt above the haze. But if half the population were to stop smoking, the positive effect would be significant and immediate. Tell me, oh people of Orphalese, is this not the truth I have spoken here?

This was apparently a rhetorical question, for the prophet did not much linger for a response. One or two people did gravely nod their heads, while others preferred to exchange puzzled looks.
The prophet spoke:

Many years ago, I left this place, then a quaint town, now a seething metropolis. Your ancestors begged of me to share what wisdom I had, and so I improvised. You would all do well perhaps, to re-read my book. It is a classic. In fact, I have in my trunk a good number of copies of the new gold-leaf millennium edition which I will sell for a fantastically discounted price for one night only. I will be happy to sign them also.

Many years ago I left this town of Orphalese, and in my travels have seen and smelled much that would make your nosehairs wilt. Now I am back for this brief return engagement… (wild applause) … now I am back, and I feel it is my duty to report that the word is not really a better place than it was when I left.

05 On Television

The man with the camcorder in his pants harbored a dark secret. Ail was a blind filmmaker. Riding on past successes he thought it prudent not to tell the studio executives of his fading eyesight.

Ali was a sad and broken man. His only saving grace was that he had not had to see any of his last five films, or The Blair Witch Project for that matter.
Speak to us of television, he said.

And the prophet answered:
In the evil east, television is run by the state (a collective gasp of horror), as a propaganda tool. In the wicked west, television is run by advertisers, as a teaching aid. Television teaches us many meaningful lessons about the meaning of life. The modern world, to which I’ve recently been, is full of shiny things. Television teaches you to collect them all. It teaches you how to need. That is it’s role. That is it’s purpose.

To buy these shiny things, you must needs rise early tomorrow morning, so better go to bed soon. You will return tired and late, desperately seeking an escape from your life. And in the comfort of your own home, there shall be a large black box, to transport you far, far away from this drudgery.

The box does not demand wakefulness. It does not even demand your attention. You’ve had a rough day. And the couch is comfy, is it not?

In your semi catatonic state you are hardly engaging company. Fortunately the box does not judge you, but simply accepts you as you are. It lulls you into sweet, comfortable rest, like sleep. So very much like sleep, but not of the deep variety. For in deep sleep, there can be no alpha waves.

Without alpha waves, there can be no dreams. And the black box wouldn’t dream of depriving you of yours. It nurtures them kindly, allowing you to float freely in a boundless sea of alpha waves.

And in so doing, the black box happily obliterates the remaining hours of your day, the dangerous hours in which an idle worker, a waking worker left unattended could turn into a blundering political force.

Happily such nightmarish scenarios are as unlikely as unhappy endings. So hypnotists of Orphalese, please take a deep bow before the ad man with a budget.

And even as the sun is a thousand times brighter than the moon, so the ad man’s budget shall be decided by a simple mathematical formula: The budget for each commercial programming shall be equal to the entire budget of the forty two minutes of filler that are required to round out an hour of programming.

The reovolution, my friends, is not being televised. Or, if it was televised, then surely we blinked and missed it.

Here the prophet paused, caught his breath, and took a lengthy drag from his fag.

04 On the Evils of the Modern World

Speak to us of the evils of the modern world, spoke a middle aged woman, whose job it was to write movie blurbs for TV Guide magazine.
The prophet said:
There are exactly two. One is the camcorder, and the other is the cellphone.

At that point, a slight hush rippled though the gathering, and Ali, who had been taping the event for future generations, quickly shut off his camcorder, and tucked it away.

The prophet continued his narrative:
Seek not to mummify your memories on electromagnetic tape, for they refuse to be embalmed. The lens is not an eye. It records, but it cannot see. Can a Frog, high on formaldehyde, recapture the gay bounce of his former days? The more you record, the less it will mean.

Fain would I seek to live life while manufacturing a myth, but how can this be done? Don’t obliterate your present by seeking to relive the past. Would you willingly lay bare your waking hours on the editing altar, to create a memory of an event not experienced?
Or would you rather refuse to even digest your tedious footage, simply to add to the detritus that is Bob Saget’s private collection, and our very public hell? The camcorder has bestowed upon us an aesthetic that allows our eyes to be blinded by reality television and our minds to numbed into accepting without outrage a cinematic hoax titled: “The Blair Witch Project.”

Dear people of Orphalese, please don’t accept the bastardization of truth - not even in your fiction.

Just then his bloody phone rang. He chose not to answer it.