The Veneer of the Trivial

Would that it was truly a veneer. Yet it seems that what should be simply a veneer goes much deeper. The trivial now presents itself as the most engrossing, most vital and celebrated preoccupation to impose itself upon our collective consciousness.

We're a culture engrossed with celebrity, with consumerism, with slight conscience and lack of any meaningful commitment. Most certainly, when a situation arises that looms large in the popular imagination, there's a collective outcry and a passion evinced for "doing something" positive.

But the real essence of peoples' lives now appears to be self-absorptive, acquiring wealth and with that wealth, material goods well beyond our practical needs. We're loathe to diminish our assets, and when we tire of them, prefer to sell them a rock bottom prices through the Internet or through grungy little garage sales, rather than profit charitable agencies that can use them for re-sale or provide them gratis to needy families.

We grudgingly pass over a few dollars to charity and feel ourselves to have done our duty. Or prefer not to support charity, and let others do it for us. When volunteers are needed to give support to agencies providing assistance to the under-privileged, or to enhance the lives of community members, we're just too busy and can't become involved.

The concept of social equality and general welfare resonates with us, quite as long as it doesn't disrupt our singular way of life. We're inspired by the lives and lifestyles of celebrities, and we're driven to repeat the excesses of materialism that we see demonstrated through films and television.

We seem somehow to imagine that the lives we see portrayed through fiction are more meaningful than our own pedestrian lives and we fall over ourselves to emulate what we admire on the surface of existence.

As human beings we have such inordinate potential. Cerebrally, mechanically, empathetically, collectively for the good of the community of which we are a part. But it's such a drag, truth to tell. It's much more entertaining and fulfilling to fall into the otherworld of advertising and public relations, to find truths there, rather than to listen to our own inbred sense of emotional needs and priorities.

We're incapable of setting priorities, of recognizing values that have deep meaning. Our most gripping needs are to transcend the boredom of having it all, because no matter how much we have, it is never enough, there's always more that we could/should acquire, and somehow satisfaction still eludes us.

The calamities, natural and man-made, that befall societies whose human-rights quotient are repressed, and whose populations endure on the edge of subsistence, are not our problems to solve, and we make no effort to beleaguer our brains, not waste thought on them.

The hapless, socially disadvantaged, uneducated among us are not our problems, either. The growing homelessness, child abandonment, drug-addled misfits and welfare recipients in our society are there because they deserve no more than they have.

We're a sad and sorry lot.