Dearest Rachel –
I realize that the ‘you’ I saw in last night’s dream was wildly out of character, but I’ve come to accept that this is how dreams operate. Considering that there was a whole other level of distance from reality involved, it shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise.
In the dream you were talking with the girls; however, it wasn’t ‘you’ or ‘the girls,’ but all of you were rather characters (or would that be caricatures?) in a comic strip. They weren’t exactly any of you, but they were recognizable enough, so that I could tell who was who. The three (or maybe four – I really don’t recall which ones, or if all of them, were there) of you were discussing an upcoming election, and pointing out that one particular candidate or referendum was clearly going to cause absolute chaos shortly down the line, which you agreed with unhesitatingly. However, you pointed out that by making this obviously evil choice, you stood to benefit (and I don’t know how, but it’s a dream, and a comic strip within a dream, so we might as well just roll with it) to the tune of millions of dollars. As a result, the final panel had you walking away from the girls with a fairly smug grin, dismissively stating that who wouldn’t vote in favor of such short-term gain? Even though you agreed it might lead to the total destruction of… I don’t even know if it was the city, the state or the entire country, but the benefits appeared to outweigh that risk, to you. Understandably, the girls were reacting with shock, as this was most unlike you.
It wasn’t much of a punchline, unless the joke was the fact that this decision was so far out of character for even this caricature of yourself as to be absurd in its own right. Personally, I’m just gonna go with the fact that my brain (or anybody’s brain, for that matter), isn’t going to come up with absolute brilliance, or even coherence, in a dream. I can’t expect a punchline to be funny any more than I can expect you to be you in there.
And yet…
Here’s the takeaway I woke up with from all that: people are willing to make what they know to be the wrong, even destructive, and dare I say, evil choice, and be fine with that, if it leads to short-term benefits. This conclusion may not be all that groundbreaking when you come down to it, but it still shakes me up. Sure, since we’re locked in each moment of time as they come to us, we naturally gravitate towards the immediate solutions; what happens to us in the future is not something we naturally think about (and often, it’s not obvious to us what the consequences of any given choice will be, especially as you project farther and farther into the future). But what blows me away is when we realize that not only are we going to pay for those short-term solutions, but that they will cost us considerably more than we benefit – and yet we choose them anyway. That’s when it gets unfathomable.
Take something like the money supply, for instance; and I realize that this is a relatively boring subject as a rule, but humor me for a paragraph. A government has the authority, the right, and even the duty up to a point to print money in order for it and its citizens to pay for goods and services. But doing too much of that leads to too much money chasing too few things, and ultimately results in those things costing that much more of that money. But some people react to more money positively, no matter what the circumstance: “Yay, my paycheck is 5% larger!” Okay, but if prices are 10% higher, you’ve lost ground. It’s like how it sounds better to be a billionaire in Korea instead of a millionaire here in the States, but – at least for now – the American millionaire is worth more, because the dollar buys that much more than the won – and I can think of all sorts of jokes about ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ at this point, but since I can’t decide on the wording, I’m going to let it go at that.
But people vote for more money in their pockets, knowing full well that this will result in inflation, because… why?
***
I used to think that people were not so much basically good, as much as they believed themselves (and their choices) to be basically good; that whole “there is a way that seems right to a man” sort of thing. It could be argued, to use to most extreme example, that Hitler thought he had Germany’s best interests at heart (although maybe that argument collapses as the war drew to a close; I understand that the man ultimately concluded that the nation had failed him and had no right to survive if they couldn’t be counted on to beat the Allies no matter how Aryanly pure they might have been). So, too, do most people think that they are making the best choice – either for themselves, or, more altruistically, for others, which could be that much better – in any given situation, thereby given that choice a certain positive moral weight compared to any other options that may exist.
These days, I’m far less sure. It would seem that a lot of decisions being made (and I leave it to you or whoever reads this to consider what belongs here – it’s quite possible that someone could conceive of something that’s the diametric opposite of what I might have in mind, and that might well answer the question behind this whole premise) are made with the full knowledge that utter disaster lies down that road, but people choose to go down it regardless. I couldn’t tell you if it’s due to some belief (or at least hope) that said disaster will somehow miss them personally, or that it won’t be so bad, or all the other options seem to be that much worse – although given certain concepts, like printing endless amounts of money or say, eliminating crime prevention and apprehension authorities, for another example, I can’t imagine how the likely alternatives (fiscal restraint and maintenance of a police force, respectively) could possibly be worse. After all, what do I know? I have no taste for government.
And that’s another possibility; there are those I understand who crave power, and will do anything to attain – and later, to hold onto – it. I don’t get it myself, as I’ve no desire for that level of responsibility – heck, I can’t even keep my house in order without hiring out a cleaning person (and now that I have, I do wish we could have agreed to do so when we were together; I know it might have hurt to admit you couldn’t do it all, but it’s so much more open and inviting in the house these days. I wish you could see it. Anyway, I’ve gone off the subject), so why would I think myself capable of running anything larger? But there are those who think this way, and don’t take into account the responsibility that goes with the position. They may destroy their own fiefdom, make it a hell on earth, and still think it’s okay, because to them, it’s “better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
We both know who said that, and by extension, whose these sort of people are. What gets me is that, they don’t seem to realize whose they are – or more to the point, that they are someone’s to begin with – even as they seem to accept that they’re in Hell.
It would be funny to note that they aren’t ‘ruling in Hell’ any more than the one who Milton gave that line to in the first place, if it wasn’t so tragic.
Of course, it may just be that, to borrow from another metaphor, they had to ride a tiger in order to get to where they are, and, having reached a certain point of power, they have to hold onto it, simply because once you get onto such a beast, there is no safe means to dismount. Perhaps these are the most tragic cases, since they know what’s in store, but having put themselves in this position, they are helpless to do anything about it, and all they can do is hope they can ride for the rest of their lives. Which they will do, regardless; it’s only a question of whether they die from natural causes, or being eaten.
At least you and I had the sense to stay off that tiger. And to ensure that I still do, honey, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 