The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Now that most of us underlings in the American plutocracy have learned that we are superfluous beings, non-essentials and persons without portfolio, the time is definitely ripe for a spiritual renaissance. Some may receive the news that their worth is negligible with great surprise and much rending of hair, but not me. I have known that bit of information since leaving the hallowed institutions of higher learning with degrees that were, like myself, worthless. Little wonder I moved to the South End. So it may be appropriate that the New Religion for these pandemic times we live in will come full fruit from these barren nettle regions. Nonessentialism. You can have your empty existentialism, your anachronistic Catholicism, your aggrieved Judaism, your battered Protestantism, your whacky New Ageism, your even whackier Evangelicals, they’re as meaningless in the Plague aftermath as Aztecan blood sacrifices on the pyramid steps after Cortez romped across their lakebed valley in the name of God and Gold.

It’s pretty obvious the keys to the Kingdom are no longer ascertained by a person’s success or wealth. The Protestant Ethic of old is deader than Martin Luther. If you thought your money and power were signs from On High that you would be granted entrance to the Pearly Gates, think again, pal. Even the rich are exempt from those criterion now. No, this is a New Era, not a New Age, forget about Aquarius. We could choose to live in Fear. Fear of joblessness, fear of poverty, fear of coming socialism and the nanny state, fear of the Virus, fear of science, fear of what our President might suggest next from his medical kitbag of panaceas. The economy is wrecked, the virus is still growing, the Age of Reason is finished. Superstition and half cracked conspiracy theories rule the land while Dread spreads like a dripping fog from sea to no longer shining sea.

This is the time for new paradigms, new religions, new politics. But … let’s be honest here, the meek aren’t going to inherit the earth, the monk in the cave isn’t going to emerge from the Dark Ages with illuminated manuscripts, a hundred Hail Mary’s aren’t going to absolve your sins or win any more football games, the games are rigged. It’s dog eat dog now, the emperor has no underwear and no clothes, the peasants won’t get cake to eat and the promise of some bullshit afterlife is a joke.

Nonessentialism, my friend. Pick up a pitchfork and head for the Amazon offices. The boyz in the corporate towers already know what you’re only starting to comprehend. You don’t matter, just a cog in the machinery of 3-D printing currency. Wake up, buddy, and smell the rot, it goes deeper than a couple of apples, it goes to the bottom of the barrel. Nonessentialism, the belief in pretty much nada. You’re on your own and about time to face the obvious. You don’t matter, you never did, and you know what? Maybe that’s not a bad starting point. Nonessentialism. You need to make the world in your own image, not the world all those yahoos who kept you down, who underpaid you, who promised you rewards … later on. Embrace it. Same as we South Enders do and always have. Nonessentialism. Now you know where you stand. Time to do something with it.

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