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• Saturday, November 1, 2008 10:59 AM

  Differing Fears

  It is not really communism (in its failed or any other form) or socialism (ibid) or persons of a different color or capital gains tax hikes they fear. What they really fear is the singular certainty of life: they'll die. They'll each (just like everyone) become irrevocably, indisputedly and insistently dead. At some point, they'll cease to be. They will be ex-humans. And they know deep down, irrevocably, indisputedly and insistently ( a little voice tells them so often) that what they profess to believe in just makes that fear of death a little more survivable. They cling to their religion (and their guns and their home-schooling and their ilk) so tightly because it gives them a pretty (ugly) lie that assuages how bad it feels to know, deep down, they'll be dead. Done. Finished. They're in a cave, looking out at the dark and there are eyes out there - other eyes - looking back at them. Eyes of big things, red in tooth and claw.

  We fear them (and their shenanigans and their shamans - the Palins and Bushes and Roves and Negropontes) because we can imagine how much more pleasant our lives could be for their duration and how much nicer and more pleasant for coming generations - and their durations - if we didn't have to expend all of our energy slogging uphill in the mud against the results of their misguided fear of mortality.

  I think I shall make a lasagna now.

  —catamitebastard Read catamitebastard's other letters
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