I’m not a man to lend favor to fortune.

I don’t dig miracles or happy endings, either. Don’t get me wrong, I get why folks do. It’s just me. I cannot see hoping for fate to mend your woes as much more than just plain laziness. Assuming by resorting to begging the gods, one has given up on their own efforts towards whatever endeavor might lie before them.

This very idea upsets people. I know it. No one likes to think their deities as trivial. Real or otherwise. But they are. Even if real, which I have many a doubt about. Even electing to follow the advice and law of texts of centuries past is most certainly a lack of will power to look at the world for how it is. Addicted to what the prophets have said ‘will be’.

And I don’t think this laziness is evil. Not to rain accolades upon the sloths. But rather, because evil takes effort. Evil takes a good bit of effort, I’d reckon. Not as much as good does, but certainly more than nothing. But the lazy, they pave the way. A world of those working at the best ‘good’ they can gather would most certainly have less evil. Right?

Sure.

Maybe.

Except that suicide bombers believe they are doing good. And all other folks acting against their fellow sentient sapiens. Their evil is benevolence to them. Their acts justified. It isn’t a cartoon. There isn’t the one evil man, who walks around causing all sorts of trouble whilst readily admitting that he knows and therefore the world should know that he is the most evil guy around. That’s not what happens. Not in this world.

So, it must be the Devil, right? They must be under a spell. The mind set askew by the true underlying evil of the existence. A force mightier and by far beyond their control must be wielding the strings.

No, it’s not that either?

So, what is it then?

Well.

I don’t know.

Truly, though. I cannot say that I do. I can only speculate based upon what I see. And what I see is lethargy, in epidemic form. The more of what is seen as evil, the more lack of effort there is in quelling it. Or vice-versa. And not in the large geopolitical scale where armies move in strategic ways to counter extreme and hostile groups and further implement neo-imperialism deeper over this floating, spinning rock. That is a conversation to have with pretty girls in bars.

The laziness lies with the average folks. And that is a crime because it is the populous that makes the most motion in the world. We remember individual figures throughout history and shower them with credit, but the truth is, and has been, that the people hold the key. If the masses reject it, it fails. Time and time again. And not to say a few folks haven’t learned the best ways to keep the masses docile and uncomplaining. Because many have. They do it all the time. And there have never been more tools available to do so with than ever before.

Children all over the developed world, are plopped in front of a screen to keep their minds from wandering and wondering about this massive globe all around them. Keeping them from what they are supposed to do. The acts that develop us. Grow civilizations. The wonder of wanting to know about all this existence swirling chaotically about us. And the lack of conditioning to fight the abstract idea, and the relentless energy to consume life and knowledge. Killing minds that could someday, without seemingly lifting much of a finger, wipe away all the woes that humanity is finding itself more crippled each day by. And by those that they want to trust more than any else. And those poor, poor and horribly guilty parents, they do not even know what they do. They are victims themselves.

But this isn’t total. Not yet.

And call me mad, but call me informed, I believe that a break might be occurring. Saturation may fail as well. Being surrounded with distraction, makes it all become white noise. It is no longer this singular point. You aren’t listening to the radio in the living room. Nor the television. Now, it is your pocket and your friend’s pocket. And by transitive properties, that means nearly everyone carries a distraction device with them, or is in within range.

And folks are starting to hate it. The young folks, believe it or not, are keener to that disdain. But generally, they have a better understanding of technology, so it can seem otherwise. Sure, they may not write well, or at all in cursive, or be able to do math without a calculator- but I guarantee they all taught their folks how to use their computer, phone, etc.

And they read more. Way more. Constantly.

No, not traditionally. I can’t say any of the young folks are reading as many books as those who lived before broadcast were, but they read hundreds, if not thousands of sentences a day. Where? How? Why?

Just look, stupid. It’s the chief complaint of the Boomers to the Millennials. They’re always typing on their damn phones. Typing? Wait, like words? And often? Back and forth with another human, within minutes, even seconds of each other? For hours? All day? Every day? That’s bananas. Even in broken English, that is a lot of reading and writing.

But still, not many are reading the classis. Or new works. Or making their own literature. Hell, most folks will never read this right here. In near enough to proper grammar.

But as many around the world are learning, synthesized interaction just doesn’t hit the spot. We are tactile creatures. We live for touch. For smell, taste and the lot of them. Despite all our technological advances, we are born into this world and touching is how we begin to grasp anything abstract from ourselves. You even start by cramming nearly everything you can grab right into your mouth. Seriously, just go watch a baby the next time you’re near one. Those little fuckers are always chewing on something, if they can help it.

So.

What was once working, is failing, and we shall be struggling to find our feet again.

Or.

I’m wrong. Or I’m the only one. It’s just me getting sick of the constant visual stimuli with less physical manifestation. Maybe I’m mad because I don’t like, nor understand, online speed dating. Or that I’ve tossed my mind so distracted, that not even the pig trough of entertainment can hold what is left of my attention.

Maybe.

But I think not. Because even without becoming a father younger than most these days, which I did manage to do, I had felt the slip. Or perhaps I never felt the grasp. I was lucky enough to be told of the practical evils of the television when I was young. And partly because there was work to be done. And partly because it is most certainly sad to see your child fixed to a screen.

Because the only gods I know of are somewhere in my daughter’s eyes. And my efforts, if they fail in everything else, cannot fail her. So, everything will be fine, right?

I don’t know.

Because how I feel is not how all feel. Because there are boatloads of failure parents in the world. But not one of them thought much of their actions as evil as they went about damning a generation with their own unrelenting self-involvement. They were just being lazy. Someone else has to take care of it, they say. It’s not my job, they say.

So, give up, I shall not. If for nothing else, to keep my own conscious clear. Because to let fate decide what shall happen with the world, would leave me riddled with wonder whether I was to do more before it all fell apart. Not something I’d like to have in my mind. Nor my heart.