The View From the Top
1.
He sniffed loudly and then was silent. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. He looked uncomfortable or bored. Or both. Probably both. I looked straight ahead, staring into the trees and swatting at the bugs flying around my head without conviction. I knew that I should probably just shut my mouth and talk about something else but I pressed on.
“Seriously, think about it. We make more than literally 99 percent of the world,” I said, turning to look at him to emphasize my point. He glanced at me and nodded.
“Yeah, I know, I realize that,” he mumbled.
“Then does getting more money really matter that much? I guess we could work the rest of our lives and end up making twice as much as we make now, but where will that get us?” I asked. He had gone back to examining the infected cut on the back on his hand. I wasn’t totally sure what I was trying to accomplish. I think I just needed to finally put my ideas out for another person to absorb. He wasn’t the best option, to be honest, but at least he was listening.
“Okay, so we go to school, we get a job, and then what? Do you want to end up like those guys in their fifties and sixties that have to work alongside twenty-two year old assholes like us? What do they have? A family, a mortgage, and a salary that isn’t significantly higher than we are making. Not double or anything, probably just twenty grand more. Maybe more, I dunno. The point is that could be our future if we are apathetic.” I was starting to get a little heated, so I stood up and walked to the opposite side of the deck. I kept my back to him for a few moments, wanting to hear some kind of response and instead getting silence. I was about to continue when he spoke.
“So…what, then? You say working a full-time job isn’t a good life goal. What are you proposing? Like, kids or something?” His voice reminded me of high school for some reason. I think it was the hesitation in his voice. Lack of conviction was the key. I was silent for a few seconds, forming the answer to his question in my head.
“Kids. Uh, well, I guess so, if that’s what you want to do. Okay, here, let me quote something I heard recently about kids: ‘A child should be your gift to the world. You are giving the world a great person and that person will make the world a better place.’” I waited a moment for him to fully absorb it and then turned to face him. “That’s great, a noble cause. The root of that line of thinking, though, is making the world a better place. That seems to be the end result, or at least it should be. If you are having kids for any other purpose then you are doing it for the wrong reasons.”
“Too many people have them for the wrong reasons,” he agreed, nodding thoughtfully and frowning. I was a little surprised with his interaction. Maybe I was on the right track here.
“Exactly. So let’s assume that a person decides to have a child and makes the twenty year commitment of raising a kick-ass person. Someone that will have a positive impact on everyone around them. Someone like you or me.” I glanced at him and grinned. His frown disappeared and he chuckled.
“Anyways, so…the goal is to have a kid be your contribution to the world,” I continued quickly. I was wanted to make sure I kept control of the conversation. It would be extremely easy for him to derail it with a few jokes. “The parents work hard and provide a better life than what they had when they were growing up, and makes sure the kid gets a good education and fills him or her with morals and all that. So then what about that kid after it grows up? Do the parents say ‘No kids for you, concentrate on making the world a better place’? No, of course not. The kid grows up and thinks the same thing as the parents. No one ends up doing the actual work, it’s just a cycle.” I paused for a moment, wanting the full weight of my next statement to be felt. “So at what point does someone like you or me look around and say ‘You know what? It’s time for me to get to work on making the world a better place’?”
He was silent, suddenly very interested in the landscape of his right foot. As I waited for a response I had a terrible thought, and for the first time I hoped he was too stupid to ask the question that he should ask next. I began to chew on my lower lip. After a few moments he looked up at me.
“So what exactly does ‘making the world a better place’ mean? Does that mean if I don’t invent the cure for cancer or write a symphony I’m the failure?” he asked.
Shit. I returned to my chair and sat down with a heavy thud.
“Uh…well, I guess,” I stammered. Why hadn’t I thought of this before so I had a convincing answer ready? “I always thought it it meant that you would aim to have a positive impact on as many people as possible. I know that ‘positive’ could have many possible meanings, but I think that an acceptable measure is that you strive to make as many people happy as you can.” Not too bad for pulling it out of my ass. I hurried to clarify. “Now, this could mean a lot of things: music, writing, art, engineering, charity work, stuff like that. Politics, I guess, if you go into it to help people and not just to get power. Stuff that has a positive impact on other people.” I was repeating myself now, so I shut up and furiously thought of a way to regain control.
“Listen to the things you listed off, though. All of that shit is subjective,” he said, leaning forward a bit in is chair, “Music, writing, and art are totally subjective. You can devote yourself to that your entire life and not make a bit of difference. And engineering? That’s too vague. What about the guys working on that hotel being built down the street? I bet they have kids and they are building something that will have an impact on people’s lives.”
I’ll admit I was surprised. I honestly didn’t think he was into this, and so his response caught me off guard. I didn’t answer right away. After a few moments I spoke up.
“You’re right. I wasn’t clear enough. I apologize. When it comes to the arts I think it is pretty obvious what I meant. Shitty art doesn’t impact people. Good art can shift a person’s thinking, hopefully for the better. At the very least it makes them use their brain, which is a good thing in my book. I mean, I know you aren’t a reader or an art lover, so it is hard for me to describe what I feel when I read something especially beautiful or poignant. I mean, a lot of times it opens entirely new avenues inside of my head. It changes me for the better.” I stopped, taking a moment to make sure I hadn’t crossed the line. He wasn’t into art or literature like I was, and the only music he liked was loud and fast. If I wasn’t careful I might offend him.
“Building stuff is a hard example to explain, so maybe I should remove it from my list. I don’t know, I don’t want to ignore that stuff because it is completely necessary to a functioning society, but it is hard for me to feel good about helping to prop up the status quo. It has to be done, but if you work as a truck driver for thirty years and do nothing else, what are you contributing?” I decided to cut my losses and stop talking. I was treading on thin ice. His family was blue collar, and so anything derogatory said about that kind of work would hit close to home. Neither of us talked for almost a minute. I sat, slightly wiggling my foot and listening to the cicadas buzz around us. My mind was completely blank when he spoke.
“I think I see your problem,” he said quietly, hesitating a moment before continuing, “it’s elitism.” A chill ran through me and a nervous laugh almost escaped my lips. I turned my entire body to look directly at him. He met my gaze and continued in a serious tone “What you mean by saying that is that you don’t respect people that aren’t geniuses. You don’t respect the people that make it possible for these extraordinary people to create these things that have a huge impact on others. Without blue collar workers we wouldn’t have electricity that is reliable. Without that truck driver we wouldn’t have food at the grocery store. Without factory workers you wouldn’t have the clothes that you wear or the million other little things that you take for granted.”
I was stunned. I quickly returned to my original position, escaping his gaze and sulking. The bark on the trees in front of me suddenly looked very interesting.
“In your view a large majority of the population is around to serve as infrastructure. They are just support for smart people so they can have the time and tools needed to create their super-important masterpieces. I don’t agree.” He paused for a second and cleared his throat. “Everything is so fucking subjective. Every last thing you mentioned. How can you sit down and decide to ‘make the world a better place’ when a large portion of the world might not agree with your vision? There is no ‘better place’. There is the real world. That’s it.” He stopped talking, and we sat in silence for a few minutes. My body felt heavy, as if my muscles were no longer under the control of my brain. When he spoke again my body jerked to life and my skin felt tingly and warm.
“I think the point of life is just to live. I don’t think there has to be some purpose to it or that you have to have a huge impact on humanity in order to feel like you made a difference. For me life is about being happy, and making the ones around me happy. That’s enough for me. None of this elitism bullshit.” He turned and spit on the grass and my ideology. He stood up and stretched.
“Come on, we need to go. I told Matt we would meet him at 7:30,” he said as he smiled.
2.
The bar was loud and smoky. My ears hurt from the noise, my throat hurt from the smoke, my stomach hurt from the alcohol, and my brain hurt from thinking. His words continued to echo inside of my skull, bouncing around with frantic energy and giving me a headache. Was I an elitist? All I wanted was for people to happy. I wanted to contribute something meaningful to the world and have a positive impact on people’s lives. But that meant nothing. It was all just words. Lots of people don’t read. Lots of people don’t look at art. Lots of people just want to live their lives and not be bothered by intellectuals. A roof over their heads and a blowjob every now and then was all it took to keep most of them happy. Most people didn’t want a ‘positive impact’ on their lives. They just wanted to exist. Most people don’t even know what they want, so how could I possibly hope to try and give them happiness or try to make them a better person? What was a better person, for that matter?
Every time a thought started to coalesce in my head it was shaken apart by the sound of breaking glass or the scream of a group of people taking another round of shots. The rest of the evening passed as a blur. Conversations rolled off of me like water and my brain seemed to be covered in wool. I drowned it in beer and was miserable.
3.
“What’s the point, then? If I just exist to be happy then what keeps me from being happy at the expense of others? There has got to be some kind of logic or reason for my actions or it doesn’t mean a fucking thing,” I said loudly. I was still angry at myself and was now taking it out on her. She took a moment before responding.
“I don’t know, honestly. I don’t know the meaning of life. I think that is what you are asking for. I can’t tell you that what they teach us in Sunday school is the correct way to live, or that living to have a positive role in the lives of others is right either. I just live my life to be happy and make sure that I don’t do it at the expense of others. That’s all one person can do,” she explained calmly. I wanted to hit her.
I sat in silence, breathing heavily into the phone and making no attempt to form a coherent thought. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore.
“I always thought that when I was nearing the end of my life I would want to look back and know that I did something I made me proud. Something that meant something in the grand scheme of things. I hate the idea that I could die tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter that much. I know that this isn’t a new train of thought in human history but it is really plaguing me right now. Why bother?” I was whining now and I didn’t care.
“I don’t know, honey. I think you should still live that way because it would make you happy and odds are a person like you would make a lot of other people happy, too. Other than that I don’t know what to tell you.” She was an angel, but right then it didn’t matter.
My thoughts were full of burning buildings and people being crushed in a surge of the crowd. I stood up and walked across my room, staring at the window that was opposite of mine. The blinds were drawn like they always were, even though it was the middle of the day. Two days before I had it all figured out, and now I felt disgusting and weak. I wondered what it meant that a simple conversation affected me in this way.
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| Phil | Dec.15.2007 - 22:15:39 | Main | Print This Page |
