We are coaxed to sell every ounce of our existence for money. Even when we do, we get lowballed. We lay ourselves out, naked and vulnerable, only meeting the same dull, hazed indifference thousands have seen before. Imagine getting an offer on your ancestral home only to have it reduced after all of the paperwork and inspections. Imagine petitioning for a salary from a man whose handshake bruises. Imagine having to convince some perfumed despot, with you begging on your hands and knees, that you are worth the crumbs he scatters thoughtlessly. Imagine having 100% of your income taxed and having to pretend to be cheery at the announcement that the tax is being reduced to “only” 99%. Imagine being a ghost, standing over your own lifeless corpse, and thanking the executioner for leaving a thimbles worth of blood. We immolate our mornings and cauterize our evenings for corporations that see us as a number. We submit our sedated bodies to hospitals that see us only as a number. We allow relationships to erode under the acid drizzle of ambition – as if any more money will make us happy. We live in an ever-deepening system of “noble” lies; we rehearse them, like schoolchildren reciting a pledge. In the service economy, we perform a great nothing. In many ways, it is much worse to be asked to do nothing. At least if I worked with my hands, one may witness the modest miracle of cause and consequence. Instead, I am asked to stare at the glowing rectangle for 12 hours a day. We are raped. We are raped. We are raped. It insists upon itself, beating at my ribs. Nothingness perpetuates nothingness, and it just feels like everything serves nothing.

For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. ~Ecclesiastes 12:14