|
|
why do i live here
i live for computers:
to be the master of plastic and silicon
dweller in the synthetic webs
the soul of the machine
i live for my poetry:
the part of my soul that i share
not with the ones close to me
but with the rest of the world
why do i live here
where i am the only thing holding me
down in this reality where
it doesn't matter what you destroy
as long as you make money
where there is no magic
where my dreams make reality so dull
where the planet's dying, and
its denizens voted for Bush
(all hail pro-pollution
"let's drill for oil in alaska"
"voluntary compliance" king w.)
90% of the germans voted to give hitler absolute power
and the vote is hailed as the ultimate
protection against government abuse
where government and corporations mix
to form the enemy of the constitution:
by extending copyright so that you can't
read your "alice in wonderland" ebook aloud
to your child, or so that you can't
play that dvd on your computer without
the holy windows (beos, amiga, next, & unix
be damned, they're only 6% of the market),
and nothing has entered the public domain
since 1910 because disney has money;
or by making encryption such a tangled mess
that email is useless for sending sensitive
information, leaving it weak enough that
big brother can spy anytime (do you trust
strangers unconditionally? then why trust a
group of strangers that claim to be acting
in your interests?) and making it so that
anyone can see what goes on in the u.s.
but we can't see them, trapped in the
cage the law has built us
why do i live
Author's Note: this is an old argument with myself that's come up before. I live because there is no guarantee it will get better if I die (and because I can't stand the thought of hurting my parents that badly.) Killing myself would just seem too selfish, sparing me of life's defeats (and successes) at the expense of bringing that defeat I hoped to avoid to several others. No matter how bad the world gets, I'll make it worse for someone else by leaving it.