...gee, I thought equality was something to be sought after. A partnership based on one party owning your nuts and you owning their heart. I can see, now, how foolish I have been.

Okay, Bennie, I think a few points of order are called for.

First of all, growing up jaded didn't do much for my health. Moving to Texas to have my ass summarily kicked up between my shoulder blades did. I also appreciate my hometown much more than I ever could sans the experience of meeting my equal(s). I s'pose I could have met them somewhere near my hometown, but there's a power that comes from being where your roots are. Sometimes a different culture full of people who are so full of themselves that they can't see their shoelaces is a necessary requirement to adding some happy years to your happy ass.

Sort of like looking in a mirror. Without the roots staring back at you.

Secondly, while it's true that some people have more than others at different points in time and space, the world as you have manufactured it contains one big, ugly flaw: you're all that's in it. Just you. Everyone else is either chattel or some sort of animated hologram designed for your temporary amusement. And the amusement is always temporary, isn't it?

I'll skip the details and just remind you that "Scrooge" is an archetype and archetypes are there for a reason. When true tales from the crypt won't move your ass from Jump Street, mythology will. However, if you're too driven to pay attention to mythology and avoid the open manholes, you might want to work on some yoga. It develops flexibility. You're going to need flexibility because you will be the only one left willing to kiss your ass, "ba'bye."

My point, and I do have one, is that equality isn't something that human perception is going to be able to render all by its lonesome. Inherent in how perception works is inequality. If everything was always the same color, you could do your own laundry and not have to bother with servants. Stubbing your toes on furniture might still be an issue, but everyone needs servants for something after all, right?

Equality is something you either believe in, or you don't.

What you believe in WILL STILL have consequences, sometimes severe ones. "Thou Shalt Not Take The Name of the Lord, Thy God, in Vain," is because thou canst not. Whomever or whatever your guiding light is is responsible for every thought you think and every breath you draw.

Beliefs are powerful things because a)they constantly prove themselves to be that way and b)they can be absolutely bass-akwards from reality. Not that you'll ever notice...you'll be too busy explaining to yourself why everything is temporary and unworthy of you to grasp that the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

I'd recommend you move your hard-earned cash to an overseas trust where you can't easily get to it and start off living in a po-dunk efficiency on the shitty side of town. It will make life much more interesting and your ability to appreciate what you have much more gratifying.

Continue on this path and not only will everything you do be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but you'll never know squat about real life and really living.

We're all equal because we all end up just as dead and live just as disappointed by that fact as everyone else. If you think winning is so f*king great, try being the loser you manufacture with every one of your silly-assed wins. And if winning is all you give a shit about, why not just be a serial killer like Bundy or Dahmer? People died today, some of them wholely innocent, because you got to eat a few good meals and drink some really good vino.

So what are you really doing with all that flesh and bone collecting in your conscience, Bennie?

...you've given up. Sensory perception is the crucial test of all reality and that's the whole ballgame.

Really?

Again, pick up some Bateson and Karl Popper and some John Eccles. Your head is up your ass.

Of COURSE where you're looking is a dead-end street...it said, "DEAD END," before you turned to go down it. Turn around and come back out. Start over. You get to do that no matter what anyone with "issues" says about you.