Stefan Molyneux
  • 2 years ago
https://freedomain.com/freedomain_books/the-future/

Centuries in the future, an old man awakes from cryogenic sleep to face the judgement of a utopian society that barely survived his past abuses of power. In the vein of 'Atlas Shrugged, philosophy, philosopher Stefan Molyneux has created a compelling and powerful work of imagination. He vividly describes the wonderful future that mankind can achieve - and the barriers to getting there - and all that we need to leave behind to finally live in peace...

Transcript
00:00:00 The Future by Stephen Molyneux, chapter 14
00:00:04 My friend Hamish was a predatory man, cold-hearted even by my standards.
00:00:12 I was able to freeze my heart in the pursuit of power, or rather, freeze one half of my heart,
00:00:23 the half that felt what others feel, and use that excess heat to fuel the other half
00:00:28 that burned to dominate and control.
00:00:32 Hamish had had it rough, no doubt.
00:00:38 His father went slowly mad, in a grating, whining, insistent,
00:00:44 follow-you-around-the-house-nagging kind of way.
00:00:47 Crazy parents who go random are one thing.
00:00:52 Crazy parents who get obsessive and invasive are quite another.
00:00:57 His dad was a low-rent manager in some boring industrial concern,
00:01:02 the kind of guy who wears a polyester short-sleeved shirt with armpit stains and an empty pocket protector.
00:01:09 He was never much of anything.
00:01:13 I met him when he was still pretty functional, and he was terrifying in his bland, predictable, forgettable face in a crowd kind of way.
00:01:23 I mean, we all end up being forgotten in one way or another.
00:01:27 At least, all of our secret thoughts vanish and scatter like morning dew,
00:01:31 unless someone writes them down, of course, which is why I want to have power.
00:01:36 If you have power, who cares about being forgotten?
00:01:39 You have extracted everything possible out of life already.
00:01:45 But Hamish's dad was a blank wall, a polystyrene construct of a pretend human being.
00:01:55 He had standard statements and standard jokes and standard opinions,
00:02:00 a mirage of identity hovering over a deep chasm of nothing.
00:02:07 He was too frightened to live, so he just paraded and pretended and regurgitated.
00:02:15 And life has a way of erasing those who erase themselves.
00:02:22 After a while, his dad just started slowly going around the bend.
00:02:28 It wasn't exaggerated to begin with, although it quickly progressed to that.
00:02:33 He would forget a few things, be unaccountably late or absent,
00:02:37 but soon he would obsessively begin to pick at something,
00:02:41 at someone in the house, his wife, their cats, or Hamish.
00:02:46 I was there one night when Hamish's dad took objection to something Hamish was wearing
00:02:50 and barred his exit from the house until he promised to change his belt.
00:02:56 Everyone knows how it goes in the teenage years. You comply and comply,
00:03:02 and then in a moment you stop complying,
00:03:05 and you are willing to fight to the virtual death rather than submit.
00:03:09 Any parent with half a brain plans for this inevitable rebellion.
00:03:14 But this all happened at the worst possible time.
00:03:18 Hamish was screaming at his dad, his dad was screaming back,
00:03:22 his mother was hiding upstairs, and it was all so useless, so pointless.
00:03:29 You wouldn't believe how many people bleed off their essential energies
00:03:33 on stupid fights of no importance.
00:03:36 Everyone thinks that these fights have some hidden and significant meaning,
00:03:40 but it's just not true.
00:03:42 People battle themselves into atoms over a lipstick color, the length of a skirt,
00:03:48 who drank the last milk, who forgot to refill the car.
00:03:52 Combat energies that should be reserved for the end times,
00:03:55 for Ragnarok or Resurrection, are squandered on stupid nothings.
00:04:01 And people end up hating each other over whether a son is wearing the right belt
00:04:06 or one that is a little too worn.
00:04:09 I remember Hamish screaming with rage at his father that he hated the crazy old man,
00:04:16 and his father with stupid avoidance stubbornness insisting that Hamish change his belt,
00:04:20 that no self-respecting man would leave the house wearing a worn-out belt.
00:04:24 Of course, thinking about it now, the belt was the dad's mind,
00:04:33 worn to a thread, ready to snap.
00:04:36 And that reminds me how often people sink their brittle yellow mental fangs
00:04:40 into an analogy that represents themselves,
00:04:43 but genuinely believe that they are fighting something external,
00:04:48 which is why the fight never ends.
00:04:52 Hamish was my poor relation.
00:05:01 His mother had come into money from some distant relative,
00:05:04 and he was heaved up from the lower classes into our exclusive school.
00:05:08 I guess he was the school's poor relation as well.
00:05:12 He knew he didn't fit in.
00:05:15 And like most families that came into sudden money,
00:05:18 he used it to detach himself from his former poverty-stricken strictness.
00:05:22 Now people who grow up poor can't really afford to screw around,
00:05:26 unless they want to sink into the general quicksand of the welfare state.
00:05:30 And so he was disciplined as hell when he was younger, by all reports.
00:05:34 But when his family got money, his father went crazy,
00:05:39 his mother got sick, and he squandered his money
00:05:42 like a formerly fat girl squanders her virginity.
00:05:47 He bought computers so powerful that they caused the lights to dim
00:05:51 when he turned them on.
00:05:53 He bought a Jeep, invested in random startups,
00:05:56 got taken for everything, almost,
00:05:59 and was about to sink back down into the lower classes,
00:06:03 his trajectory like a cannon shot high in the air,
00:06:06 returning from whence it came when his mother died.
00:06:10 And he inherited more money from her, from her death, her insurance.
00:06:17 Getting money dissolves the poor.
00:06:21 Losing money dissolves the rich.
00:06:24 It's better for most people to just stay where they are,
00:06:27 where they started, and not get notions above their station,
00:06:31 as the old British saying went.
00:06:34 Poor people who get money are like accidental immigrants
00:06:37 to a wildly foreign culture that they can never understand.
00:06:41 Their money pushes away everyone they grew up with,
00:06:44 all their relations, everyone they know,
00:06:46 but it doesn't bring them any closer to people who've learned
00:06:49 how to live with their money for at least a couple of generations.
00:06:53 So they end up adrift, abandoned, homeless, without a tribe.
00:06:59 Their poor relations claw at them, both trying to bring themselves up
00:07:03 and bring them down.
00:07:06 But their isolation and desperation keep all the members
00:07:08 of the old money club at a distance.
00:07:11 So what's the point of getting to know someone who recently came into money
00:07:15 when odds are they will just end up flailing and falling back into their poverty?
00:07:22 But I liked Hamish. He was crazy talented.
00:07:26 He could play guitar, sing well, he wrote music,
00:07:29 he wrote bitter short stories, acted in plays,
00:07:32 learned the arcane and ancient art of darkroom photography.
00:07:37 He was not very attractive.
00:07:39 He had a kind of low-rent elfin look with his half-pajama shirt,
00:07:42 skinny jeans and cobbler's shoes.
00:07:46 Knowing his limitations, he decided to go for the "too cynical to breathe" shtick.
00:07:54 People who come into money also think that they are coming into attractiveness.
00:07:59 But the alpha females of the old money club are well aware of how dissolving
00:08:03 new money can be.
00:08:06 Socially, we all like to wait for at least a couple of years,
00:08:09 a couple of generations sometimes, just to see if the money sticks around,
00:08:13 or if the idiots just blow it and vanish.
00:08:16 Are they a stable boat or a leaping whale?
00:08:22 I didn't think that Hamish would sink back down, at least not all the way.
00:08:26 He had too great a horror of poverty to end up tumbling down to the bottom of the stairs.
00:08:31 But accidental good fortune is the greatest spur of vanity in the human heart.
00:08:37 And because he had money, he also thought he had acumen, intelligence and wisdom.
00:08:43 So he was pathetically easy to exploit.
00:08:49 He tried dipping down to the middle classes to show off his money and scavenge
00:08:53 among the materially desperate daughters of the endlessly striving.
00:08:58 However, his corrosive cynicism put off the fathers who worked to squelch any budding romances.
00:09:05 Hamish knew, deep down, that he would need to dip even further to the daughters
00:09:11 of the single mother brigade who would leap at his money like suicidal fish into a bloody boat.
00:09:17 But that was too far down for his pride.
00:09:20 So he flirted and skirted around the edges of our alpha females, our precious egg maidens,
00:09:25 who were polite and distant and utterly untempted.
00:09:34 Jane was another matter, but she was a lock to his key, so to speak.
00:09:41 His father had earned his money, but somewhat by accident by being an early adopter of bitcoin.
00:09:47 He had foresight and a good knowledge of economics, but he didn't gather his resources
00:09:52 by sweating to provide value in the free market, so his new wealth affected him in a way
00:09:58 pretty similar to inheritance.
00:10:02 Jane's father considered himself superior to the masses, even superior to our old money club,
00:10:08 but would never admit it, and so paraded around with false humility that was blindingly obvious
00:10:13 in its hypocrisy.
00:10:16 Daniel viewed everyone as irrational, as wayward projects to be saved by charts and graphs,
00:10:23 and so was unwilling to learn from anyone.
00:10:29 People comfortable with money hate being lectured to about economics.
00:10:34 People comfortable with power hate being lectured to about morality.
00:10:39 And so Daniel and his family ended up fairly isolated.
00:10:43 They were all pretty athletic, and so the old-world hyper-competitiveness of the old money club
00:10:49 was willing to overlook his false humility haughtiness because he and his wife were good at tennis.
00:10:55 They were invited, they were chatted with, but they never got anywhere close to the inner sanctums
00:11:01 where the real relationships, the real value and values were informed and reinforced.
00:11:10 I was there at the dinner party where Hamish first met Jane.
00:11:15 He refused to stare at her, which was a great and obvious mistake.
00:11:18 She was so worthy of being stared at, particularly at first meeting,
00:11:21 that to look away was a sign of the greatest possible interest.
00:11:26 The older generation was talking about the crisis in mental health care.
00:11:31 Daniel was insisting that the turning out of mental patients into the street
00:11:34 was a socialist plot to undermine society.
00:11:38 He had some good arguments and some reasonable data,
00:11:41 but because he had spent all his energy researching rather than learning how to be pleasant,
00:11:45 he just drove people away from his position.
00:11:50 I watched Hamish's cheeks get redder and redder until he said, gesturing with a hunk of bread,
00:11:56 "I don't know where to put crazy people, but they're not amusing at all to have around the house."
00:12:01 Jane was always fascinated by deep emotional issues masquerading as abstract arguments.
00:12:07 She leaned forward, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
00:12:10 "You sound like you have some personal experience."
00:12:13 "Court."
00:12:15 Hamish froze.
00:12:17 He could not minimize his experience, as too many of us knew about his family.
00:12:21 "Well," he said, "you do get to learn a lot about attention to detail when you live with a manic obsessive.
00:12:26 I can't leave home with a hair out of place."
00:12:29 To understand why this was funny, you had to know that Hamish's hair was a bushy tangle of Scottish steel wool.
00:12:35 Jane frowned.
00:12:37 "Is that something to joke about?"
00:12:41 Hamish gestured eerily and then, rather insultingly, took a bite from his dinner roll and spoke through the fragments.
00:12:48 "What are you going to do? You laugh or you cry?"
00:12:51 "Oh, but you must cry about it sometimes."
00:12:54 She turned to the table as a whole.
00:12:56 "You all know about this? Is it his father? Is it your father?"
00:13:00 His eyes narrowed.
00:13:02 "I presume it was my father," she pondered for a moment.
00:13:06 "Some mental issues seem to be more masculine.
00:13:11 What is going on in your home?"
00:13:14 Hamish looked at me helplessly, insisting with his eyes that I interrupt this question.
00:13:19 We all hid tiny smiles, not wanting to stall the coming entertainment.
00:13:25 "Oh, I'm sure I don't want to bore everyone here with my little troubles," shrugged Hamish.
00:13:30 Jane compressed her lips.
00:13:32 "Is it really a bother, though? We talk a lot about things that don't mean a lot.
00:13:37 No, I think you brought this up for a reason."
00:13:41 Jane's father laughed. "Oh no, we've hit a gusher. Break out the couch!"
00:13:46 She shot him a look of annoyance, but obviously chose to confine her reaction.
00:13:51 She turned back to Hamish.
00:13:53 "If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to, of course."
00:13:57 A lower-class sting of reaction, we all felt it, the perceived humiliation of being given permission.
00:14:02 God, it was entertaining!
00:14:05 "I don't mind talking about it," said Hamish loudly. "Every family has their…"
00:14:09 He gestured around the table.
00:14:11 "I'm sure that there are more than a few batty aunts and uncles floating around the belfries of this gathering.
00:14:15 It's just something we deal with. The mind is a funny thing, and sometimes the joke is on us."
00:14:23 His speech was pressured. He struggled not to laugh.
00:14:27 Jane leaned forward. I almost expected her to put her hand on his forearm.
00:14:33 "What has been going on?"
00:14:35 "That's a big topic, I'm afraid. Perhaps another time."
00:14:40 Jane's eyes widened slightly.
00:14:42 "Oh, Hamish, isn't it? Hamish, we talk a lot here about all these abstract issues,
00:14:48 but when something tangible comes up in our midst, I think it's more interesting to talk about that, don't you?"
00:14:54 Her positive attitude was annoyingly contagious. I could see Hamish struggling not to soften.
00:15:00 My friend to my right dug his elbow into my side.
00:15:04 Jane's father said, "Your father is going through some… issues, right? He's going mad."
00:15:11 There was an awkward silence, and I mentally applauded Hamish for regaining his status with the simple statement of fact.
00:15:18 Jane said, "Mad? How?"
00:15:22 Hamish shrugged. "Does it matter?"
00:15:25 "I think it does. It does to me, at least."
00:15:29 Her voice was gentle like lazy honey.
00:15:34 Hamish took a deep breath. Everyone stared at him. It was so vivid.
00:15:39 He laughed a little shakily.
00:15:42 "Well, if you want to know, he's becoming kind of vague and abstracted,
00:15:50 but at the same time he's focusing on these tiny details and obsessing over them,
00:15:54 and you can't move anywhere or lift a finger without satisfying these endless train tracks in his brain.
00:16:00 This morning there couldn't be a crumb on the dishes before they went in the dishwasher.
00:16:04 Yesterday we had to check all of the carpets for loose threads.
00:16:08 Last week all the pants had to be taken from the closet and pressed perfectly.
00:16:12 And you can fight this, and sometimes I do because I don't want to go crazy,
00:16:15 but other times it's easier to just let it happen or make it happen so that he gets some ease, I guess."
00:16:24 Jane considered his words.
00:16:27 "And where is your mother in all of this?"
00:16:31 She glanced around the table, suddenly embarrassed.
00:16:34 "I don't want to bore everyone. Not that you're boring, Hamish, but this might be more of a private conversation."
00:16:39 My mother smiled and gestured for her to continue.
00:16:43 Hamish took a slow breath.
00:16:46 "My mother is... not well either, but it's physical, not mental."
00:16:52 "Oh gosh, I'm so sorry. What is it?"
00:16:56 "Cancer."
00:16:58 There was a silence at the table, particularly for the older generation.
00:17:02 The demon word they most feared had been uttered and all appetite vanished.
00:17:07 "That is terrible, terrible. Tell me, are you getting the support that you need?"
00:17:13 Hamish shook his head slightly.
00:17:15 "I'm not... I'm not sure what you mean."
00:17:19 "Well, do you have nurses and aides and... I don't know what else. Do you have family, extended family? Do they help?"
00:17:26 Hamish paused.
00:17:28 "Extended family... don't have much to do with us."
00:17:34 No more explanation was needed. New money was an isolating virus we all understood.
00:17:39 Jane turned to her father.
00:17:41 "Dad, we've... you must know something that can help in this kind of situation."
00:17:45 He cleared his throat awkwardly.
00:17:48 "I'm... happy to help, but it... really should be coming from Hamish, if you don't mind me saying so."
00:17:57 "Hamish, do you need any help? I'm sorry to be asking, we don't really know each other, but... well, I guess we do now."
00:18:04 The way he said it brought slight laughter to the table.
00:18:08 Hamish worked his jaw from side to side as if masticating his potential words.
00:18:14 "They're terrible with money. No idea how you could help."
00:18:18 "Dear God, that was such a wonderfully cynical statement, so delightfully nihilistic, that mental applause ran through the minds of all the young men present.
00:18:29 I could see it flickering through their eyes like giggling ghosts."
00:18:34 Jane's eyes widened as she understood the import of the statement.
00:18:39 She curled her lip in slight disgust, and then, almost too small to see, a slight, tiny pout which I knew was her sign of interest.
00:18:52 My father clapped Hamish on the back and said, "With that attitude, I'm sure that your money will be here to stay."
00:18:59 There was general laughter, and topics moved on.
00:19:05 Hamish ate in silence, but Jane kept glancing at him, and I could see her feminine calculation, her stalled maternal instincts straining to encircle him and heal his wounds.
00:19:19 "Oh, trashy, needy men always want to encourage women to postpone motherhood so that women will end up mothering them."
00:19:27 Jane was a natural-born mother, but she swallowed whole, as just about everyone did, I don't blame her,
00:19:33 the propaganda about going to college and having a career and having your own money and not trusting men and waiting and dating and freezing your eggs,
00:19:40 standard high-IQ depopulation stuff which can significantly reduce or even eliminate procreation among those most challenging to rule.
00:19:50 I'd heard she was the kind of kid who constantly scanned her environment for wounded birds and would be disappointed if they flew away from her reaching, healing hands.
00:19:59 She had a deep-seated hunger to make broken things whole, and so she was drawn to Hamish in a classically Freudian manner.
00:20:09 She wanted to heal him, he wanted to sleep with her.
00:20:14 But, as we all know, men will not change whatever brings female attention to them.
00:20:20 He knew deep down that she was interested in him because he was broken, so he had no intention of fixing himself.
00:20:27 A child that likes to drive will never steer itself.
00:20:32 But letting a woman mother you is endlessly frustrating, because unless she is extremely disturbed, the mothering kills any sexual attraction.
00:20:43 Jane was not disturbed, just untutored.
00:20:48 Her parents were sunny optimists who believed that daylight always kept vampires at bay.
00:20:56 Hamish drew Jane into his circle of cynical friends, really military companions in the sharpshooting of any cultural lights in the vicinity.
00:21:06 They competed wildly in a scintillating race to the bottom black comedy fest, where any slight hesitation in the free fall to dissolving infinity was marked as bourgeois fastidiousness.
00:21:21 There are birds who always prefer their eggs bigger, even to the point of absurdity.
00:21:27 Jane was one of those.
00:21:30 Confronted with the internal rending cynicism of an entire tribe, she was drawn to try and mother them all.
00:21:40 They played with her like a fish on a line, promising reform and optimism and goodwill,
00:21:46 but Jane would decay into blindingly obvious self-destructive behaviors which drew her more into the quagmire of their emptiness.
00:21:55 They constantly belittled society, but never turned their withering gazes on themselves.
00:22:01 They judged and exhoriated and insulted endlessly, and turned any criticism of themselves into psychological weakness on the part of their accusers.
00:22:12 "Why are you so fascinated by me?" they would demand of any interrogators.
00:22:17 "I bother you because of you, not because of me."
00:22:22 In this way they drove everyone away who might have substantially improved them.
00:22:28 Their cynicism was a near biological defense mechanism, an immunity response designed to keep the cancer killers of reason and evidence at a foggy distance.
00:22:43 I don't know what kind of psychological death spiral kept Jane in their decaying orbit,
00:22:51 but I do know that she proved unable to break free.
00:22:58 "You can't criticize drug use if you've never even tried," they said.
00:23:03 "If you want to rescue people, there's no better time to do it than two o'clock in the morning.
00:23:08 Kick off your welded-on goody-two-shoes for once and just learn how to relax."
00:23:16 And so she dipped into their dead world, like a bad swimmer might dive deep to rescue a pet, never to float again, at least for a while.
00:23:32 Chapter Fifteen
00:23:41 I was at the party, the party that killed her, and it was, until then, a rollicking good time.
00:23:50 Beauty and wealth often go hand in hand, because men with money marry women with looks, and those looks pass on to their children.
00:23:58 Pretty people, pretty houses, pretty cars.
00:24:02 That the world wants to gorge itself to death on such ephemeral candy floss is not my invention,
00:24:07 but I would be damned if I would not exploit it to the end.
00:24:11 We had a DJ, a jello pool, professional dancers, inflatables in the swimming pool,
00:24:17 and all the booze and weed that young livers and lungs could handle.
00:24:22 New arrivals were told that the upstairs were off-limits, which kept the bedrooms free for those in the know.
00:24:28 There was a lot of fresh meat in attendance, people who had swallowed the nonsense that parties were just great fun,
00:24:34 the stuff of great Gatsby memories where social status was cemented,
00:24:38 the grappling hooks of giggling subjugation could be fired up to raise yourself to a higher level,
00:24:43 that all the drinks and lights and shaking asses were a social oasis well worth betraying your parents,
00:24:48 your conscience, your soul, and your God to drink deep from.
00:24:53 We knew better.
00:24:57 We had created this mirage of temptation.
00:25:02 The purpose of the party was to undo innocence and nothing else.
00:25:09 It has always struck me as strange that people know for a simple fact that the devil is attractive,
00:25:19 but still chase these pretty delusions off a cliff.
00:25:25 Beauty is a gilded mousetrap that clamps down on your future.
00:25:31 Thankfully, priests no longer warn the young of this, so they follow their senses straight out of Eden.
00:25:37 Ah, the night was beautiful.
00:25:41 The scent of young eagerness intoxicating.
00:25:45 One could almost hear the panting desire of the newcomers to trade all their tomorrows for one.
00:25:52 What? What did they want to trade everything for?
00:25:56 We knew what we were after.
00:25:58 I never had a clue what they really wanted.
00:26:01 Perhaps a commercial they could climb into and live in forever, becoming as flat as the screen.
00:26:07 Maybe everyone spent so many years watching people have fun that they imagined that fun was being watched,
00:26:14 so they made fools of themselves to gain attention.
00:26:17 But clowns are the lowest form of comedy, except life itself.
00:26:22 I never watched the video that was shot in the upstairs bedroom,
00:26:29 but I heard that someone convinced Jane to dance on a table to "let loose for once."
00:26:37 It was amazing how these simple phrases could command people like remote control.
00:26:43 It was always with the implicit promise that if she did "let loose,"
00:26:47 then her chiding words of constant instruction would be taken more seriously.
00:26:51 Hoping to gain credibility, perhaps, and drunk, perhaps, or the victim of a spike,
00:26:59 she did dance on the table to some foul low-rent song, and the shirks knew they had her.
00:27:07 They were live-streaming to all the envious excluded eyes,
00:27:11 and whoever jostled her made sure to have Jane between him and the camera.
00:27:16 Oh, the inevitable slow-motion video setting was activated,
00:27:21 so everyone saw an excruciating and exquisite detail,
00:27:25 Jane toppling from her disco perch, having people pretend to catch her,
00:27:31 and pulling her top and her bra from her chest.
00:27:37 Because of the slow motion, it took a few seconds for her face to change
00:27:42 from pleasure to shock to horror, and before that change,
00:27:46 she looked as if she were enjoying being topless.
00:27:52 Naturally, those were the stills that made the rounds.
00:27:56 Once you got in deep with the sharks, there was no easy or pleasant or safe extraction.
00:28:05 Either one of them slept with you and shared his conquest, or, if you refused, same.
00:28:13 Broken people will always blame the kindness of strangers for failing to help them.
00:28:21 A complete absence of self-responsibility always gets its revenge.
00:28:26 As a man, I'm not entirely sure of the existential horror of public nudity,
00:28:34 but for women, and in particular for Jane, it is a nightmare without end.
00:28:40 As a kid, I remember one of my mother's friends rolling her eyes at her husband's habit
00:28:45 of stretching in his underwear in front of the window,
00:28:47 while she imitated herself kneeling down and half-crawling past the same window after her shower.
00:28:53 Delightfully incomprehensible, I thought at the time, as I have thought many times since.
00:29:03 Jane was untutored, unprepared for such inevitable exploitation.
00:29:11 Parties are for the destruction of innocence, and boy, did that one achieve its goal.
00:29:18 Her father should have told her that humiliation is a relationship, not an absolute.
00:29:24 Refuse to be humiliated, stand tall and own whatever you did,
00:29:28 and the bullies, who are bullies because they're paranoid about weakness,
00:29:31 drop you and move on to easier targets.
00:29:34 You can gain status by being attacked.
00:29:38 Humiliation can transform into strength and power, but she could not make the leap, so...
00:29:46 she took the step.
00:29:50 Jane stayed home from school.
00:29:56 Oh, it was a terrible mistake. I can't believe her father let that happen.
00:30:00 Going the creepy homeschool option is an open invitation to escalation.
00:30:04 She showed fear, major error.
00:30:07 She should have shown a combination of good humor and anger.
00:30:10 She should have shared the memes and strode into school wearing a two-egg halter top.
00:30:14 She should have slapped whoever she knew was in that party room.
00:30:17 She could have ridden this wave to the very top.
00:30:20 Instead, she stepped off a stepladder into nothing at all.
00:30:30 And it always struck me as strangely predictable.
00:30:36 And it does now, in this tiny room, trapped on a hard bed like a soft baby,
00:30:41 that Jane killed herself in her parents' house, not in the house of the party.
00:30:51 I can't imagine what her parents said to her,
00:30:56 but I imagine they blamed her for her indiscretion,
00:31:00 not themselves for letting her slide into the jaws of the sharks.
00:31:03 Probably her father dangled her over the predators in the hopes of gaining access to power,
00:31:12 using her as a mouthpiece for his idiotic theories of abstract virtue.
00:31:17 He had something to feel guilty for and dumped all that guilt on her and broke her into nothing.
00:31:25 It took three days for Jesus to come back to life,
00:31:30 and it took three days for Jane to take her stairway to heaven.
00:31:36 Unknown number.
00:31:40 I was playing a sword-wielding VR game when my phone lit up outside my fake universe,
00:31:47 announcing a call from an unknown number.
00:31:50 I was in hot competition with an unknown online foe,
00:31:55 and I didn't care to lose because of a probable telemarketer,
00:31:57 so I played on, swiping at the blocks like a mad conductor.
00:32:01 Afterwards I got a call from Hamish, and we studiously avoided the topic of Jane,
00:32:08 because we didn't want to acknowledge that she might conceivably be in our thoughts.
00:32:12 Something odd was going on, though, because he insisted that we plan to go hunting for Pokemons,
00:32:17 something we had not done for years.
00:32:20 It was the kind of regression that should have warned me of something.
00:32:24 "Hang on," he said as I was mildly protesting the hassle of reinstalling Pokemon Go.
00:32:30 "Ah, never mind, unknown caller."
00:32:34 I felt an odd shiver then, like a goose walking on my grave, as my great-aunt used to say.
00:32:43 A notification popped up that I had a voicemail message in my hand.
00:32:48 Literally, it felt frozen to my phone, as if I could will it to hold down the 1 key to get the message,
00:32:55 but it would simply refuse to obey.
00:32:59 I felt a rise of nausea and a hatred and impatience for every day I was living,
00:33:04 all the stupid and wasteful moments of my waking breaths,
00:33:08 and I suddenly wanted to be in Thailand, in a fishing village,
00:33:11 pulling at simple protein, far from technology, and floating colored blocks, and my family, and my cell phone.
00:33:20 Hamish said, "Ah, got a message. Could be an old one. Could be important. I'll hit you back."
00:33:26 Falling in slow-motion fear, I dialed into my voicemail.
00:33:34 It was Jane.
00:33:38 Something in her voice commanded my finger.
00:33:42 The way she said her name, the distant tinny disembodied voice,
00:33:46 as if she had been cast back in time to a 1950s beach radio abandoned in the midnight sand.
00:33:53 My forefinger jabbed the 7 button, deleting the message forever.
00:33:58 The phrase "Pity Party" floated through my mind.
00:34:02 My mother would say that whenever one of her friends complained, and I really hated the words.
00:34:09 I sat on the couch, staring at my phone,
00:34:14 both wanting and not wanting Hamish to call back to tell me whatever Jane had said that my finger would never let me hear.
00:34:25 I would like to say that the thought of raising the alarm did not cross my mind, and I did tell myself that for many years.
00:34:32 But now, on this bed, in this white room, the inside of an empty die,
00:34:42 there's no point continuing the dishonesty.
00:34:46 I could have called Jane's father, her mother, 911. I could have called Jane back.
00:34:50 I could have texted Hamish, and we could have raced over.
00:34:53 I could have called my own father for advice, but I quailed at even the hint of the notion that I had a problem I could not handle.
00:34:59 No, no.
00:35:02 I sat there like a lump on a log.
00:35:04 Another phrase of my mother's that I hated.
00:35:07 As the room grew dark, my heart grew cold,
00:35:13 and a particular set of shining train tracks narrowed ahead of me,
00:35:18 radiating from my feet forward on the basis of my indecision and...
00:35:24 What?
00:35:27 Why did I not act?
00:35:34 I don't know if this was a fork in the road.
00:35:37 Everyone thinks that these forks go left and right, which is a total lie.
00:35:43 The forks go up and down,
00:35:46 down to the depths I inhabit in...
00:35:50 whatever state I am in now.
00:35:55 What did I want from wanting nothing?
00:35:59 It was truly nothing that you wanted.
00:36:02 My throat constricts. The voice is back.
00:36:06 What the hell does that mean?
00:36:08 It's just another way of rephrasing...
00:36:10 rephrasing what I just said.
00:36:13 But not quite, not quite.
00:36:18 The thought arises in me that I wanted Jane to...
00:36:23 not to die, necessarily, but fail in some monstrous fashion,
00:36:28 so that I would not have to choose...
00:36:32 What? Choose what?
00:36:38 Why?
00:36:40 Whatever led me to where I am.
00:36:45 I could have helped someone instead of staring at a darkening wall,
00:36:49 a dead lump in my throat.
00:36:53 [sigh]
00:36:57 I should cry.
00:36:59 I'm human enough to know that I should cry.
00:37:03 But apparently I only shed tears in self-pity.
00:37:10 If I had called back, she just would have sucked me into her drama
00:37:13 and raged against me and tried to pull me close to staunch her wounds,
00:37:17 and I would have had a full-time job trying to prop up a hysteric
00:37:19 who lost her life because she lost her top.
00:37:23 People that fragile, something in life will undo them,
00:37:25 better sooner than later, save...
00:37:28 No, that was too far.
00:37:31 Even for me. No one deserved... deserves.
00:37:38 If I had called her back, we would have been bound together forever,
00:37:44 like a balancing act over a bottomless grave.
00:37:49 She would have...
00:37:51 She would have gained power over me, which I cannot abide, I cannot bear.
00:37:56 I would have been mocked by my friends, "How's the patient today?"
00:38:01 I can't make the world a better place, and I can't hit the gas
00:38:04 and prepare an unprepared soul for the ravages of this planet.
00:38:11 And I sat in the dark, and I jumped up when my parents came home
00:38:15 and pretended to have been napping because I couldn't turn the light on
00:38:18 quick enough to cover my inaction.
00:38:21 And I went through dinner, and I watched a movie.
00:38:24 I listened to my dad complain about politics,
00:38:27 casting terrified glances at my phone, waiting for the inevitable blow-up.
00:38:33 And nothing was noticed. Nothing at all.
00:38:38 No curious gaze was cast in my direction.
00:38:41 No sudden questions about where my mind was.
00:38:44 No queries as to what might be troubling me.
00:38:49 And I realized that night that that is why I did not call Jane back.
00:38:57 My family only recognized me as someone hiding everything.
00:39:07 An absurd thought ripped into my mind.
00:39:10 If I had called Jane back, my family would not have recognized me
00:39:14 and would have shot me as an intruder.
00:39:22 Now, the funeral was a funny thing.
00:39:25 You always think of caskets going into the mud on rainy, cloudy days
00:39:29 with bubbling violin sounds half-drowning in the drizzle.
00:39:33 Everyone moves slowly. Women stagger. Grim-faced men help them along.
00:39:38 Children are yelled at for playing tag through the wet trees.
00:39:43 A fresh tombstone rises like a single incisor against the mossy molars of old deaths.
00:39:50 A gathering around a single hole reminds everyone that no one is visiting the other bodies.
00:39:55 And everyone feels the sudden tiny shock of mortality,
00:39:59 knowing that one day they too will go into the ground
00:40:03 and stare at black velvet until the worms eat their eyes.
00:40:07 And everyone makes sudden tiny resolutions about being better, doing better,
00:40:11 which everyone forgets by the time the reception is over,
00:40:14 like everyone pretends to diet until there are free cookies at the buffet.
00:40:20 The sudden yearning to be better is transformed into a greedy hunger for more and more and more,
00:40:26 as if we can stuff that grave with money and power and status and sex
00:40:31 so there is no room for us and we can live forever.
00:40:37 Jane's funeral was a consciously tragic affair.
00:40:42 An acoustic version of her favorite song, "Scar Tissue,"
00:40:45 was played and sung by a friend of hers who clearly relished the chance to show off her talents.
00:40:50 She knew she was being filmed for social media.
00:40:52 A little stomach-turning, but, eh, what can you do? People are people.
00:40:57 And all the people she knew, all the people she dominated, through no fault of her own.
00:41:03 She was not responsible for being born beautiful and smart.
00:41:06 And all the people she tried to help, they all came and stood in random circles and clumps
00:41:12 and cried at her passing and were moved by their own crying,
00:41:16 because that meant they were sensitive, trademark, and good, trademark.
00:41:21 And the sun shone down blindingly,
00:41:25 and people refused to wear their sunglasses so that other people could see their red eyes and occasional tears.
00:41:32 The only rain that entire day was self-pity.
00:41:37 And nature did not care one bit that a glorious creation of hers had gone to ground.
00:41:45 The birds flew, the trees rustled, clouds could not be bothered to attend.
00:41:56 I saw a worm in the grass, sunning itself, enjoying the heat before diving into the wet dark for its new meal.
00:42:04 And I suddenly found myself going through the mental exercise of imagining what she would be called on an underground menu.
00:42:12 A Jane Witch.
00:42:15 A French restaurant would call her "Jean-Pin" for bread.
00:42:20 Going to another language was lame, but I couldn't think of any...
00:42:23 Champagne Jane? Although her pain was no sham.
00:42:27 Brain drain Jane? Perhaps they removed her brain before she was put in the silk box vagina.
00:42:33 Sub-domain Jane? Below she will rule the dirt with cracking beauty.
00:42:39 And now...
00:42:44 Mundane Jane. Just a body.
00:42:48 A woman can fall from her great height into a lake.
00:42:52 Then she turns to stone and ceases to be, but the ripples of her impact never stop.
00:43:01 Hamish turned to me and pointed at a headstone of Jesus kneeling and praying and said,
00:43:06 "I'm not sure why stone Jesus is diving for a volleyball."
00:43:12 I felt some nausea in that moment, as if these words were a sentence passed upon me.
00:43:19 Upon all of us.
00:43:22 I felt a revulsion, a certainty that there would be no escape from this giggling narcoleptic compulsion to make jokes at every expense.
00:43:32 That none of us would ever feel anything of importance.
00:43:36 That the singer was not thinking about Jane, but hoping she sounded good on YouTube.
00:43:41 That everyone who cried was weeping to be seen, to be important.
00:43:45 That we were all precious and self-conscious and stuffing our hollowness with the empty eyes of empty people.
00:43:52 And there was no one to talk to, nothing to hear, nothing to say that meant anything other than manipulation.
00:44:01 And that we could not be honest because we were all so terrified of each other, of disapproval.
00:44:07 Of the simple fact that all our relationships hung by a skinny thread of conformity.
00:44:14 We were invited up to give speeches, and one by one we all went, removing our hats to show off our hair, like an audition to be a human being.
00:44:27 The speeches were all the same, just rearranged.
00:44:32 "My heart is broken. I loved her, although I didn't know her as well as I wanted to. She was an inspiration, so helpful.
00:44:41 Here's a detail about someone she helped that tells you all you need to know about her.
00:44:45 I had no idea she was suffering this much. My deepest sympathies to her parents. She loved animals.
00:44:51 She made everyone laugh. She was the life of every...
00:44:54 Well, no one wanted to mention the word "party", so they said, "social gathering.
00:44:58 I'm not overly religious, but I feel sure we will meet again.
00:45:01 This song came on the radio that reminded me of her, and I cried and cried.
00:45:05 I will always regret not doing more. She's in a more peaceful place, blah, blah, blah."
00:45:16 And no one could say the truth.
00:45:21 That would have been impossible. You would have been ostracized into interstellar space if a simple syllable of honesty had passed your lying lips.
00:45:31 No one could say.
00:45:35 I secretly loved her downfall.
00:45:37 I shared those pictures on self-shredding social media. I thought it was hilarious, like a nun at a strip club.
00:45:43 I looked away when I saw her. I didn't call to see how she was doing. I laughed with everyone else.
00:45:47 I drove her with scalding whips of scorn right off the cliff.
00:45:51 I bought the rope and tied it for her and helped her, sobbing up the ladder and kicked it away.
00:45:56 I loved the drama. I loved the power I now hold over life and death.
00:46:00 I will be feared. I will be obeyed.
00:46:03 And I will be a slave to the conformity that only sometimes refrains from murder.
00:46:07 But I don't mind, because I have no idea how to live.
00:46:10 So conformity is as good a system as any.
00:46:12 And breaking from the crowd is now so dangerous that conformity is survival.
00:46:17 I don't have to be good. I just have to want to live, which I don't even have to earn. It's built in.
00:46:23 So the great gifts Jane gave me are purpose and meaning.
00:46:27 My purpose is to stay alive. My meaning is to destroy those who deviate.
00:46:32 Jane did not die in vain. She gave me, all of us, an inescapable map for the rest of our unnatural lives.
00:46:43 Nothing gets you to lie like death.
00:46:49 I remember being dragged to the funeral of a nanny when I was younger.
00:46:53 I suppose I should have said "my nanny," but they never felt "mine."
00:46:57 And she had lived such a useless, loser life that the only thing anyone could say about her,
00:47:02 other than the platitude that she loved children,
00:47:04 when all she really loved was a paycheck and daytime television,
00:47:07 was that she put a lot of thought into the candies she chose to hand out on Halloween.
00:47:14 Even at the age of seven, I think, the idea of having slightly better Halloween candy
00:47:19 as your legacy of existence was almost infinitely depressing to me.
00:47:25 The people who will remember her the longest are just dentists.
00:47:30 Maybe they will name their boats after her.
00:47:33 The thought made me giggle, but I knew enough to bite my cheeks, draw blood, and stay silent.
00:47:43 I guess certain losses are so profound that they can only find salvation in drama.
00:47:52 Jane's dad gave a long speech which touched and brushed and skirted around the central issue
00:47:58 of reputation assault and social media bullying.
00:48:00 You know, the standard "I wish people had acted differently" stuff which allowed him to tell himself
00:48:05 that he rolled his boulders of stone words through the collective assembly of selfish people.
00:48:11 But this man, who had suffered unimaginable loss, still could not eviscerate the callow youths
00:48:17 yawning in front of him.
00:48:19 We held the power he could only hint for the sake of his own conscience.
00:48:26 But we all lived and breathed for power over the good.
00:48:32 That was the constant tension of her endless lives, power versus virtue.
00:48:37 Of course, everyone wants to be good.
00:48:40 Every movie and book is about the triumph of virtue over evil.
00:48:43 That is a central myth of our existence, but it's all nonsense and vanity.
00:48:48 If good people are ever allowed to gather power, they will flush us up into orbit.
00:48:54 It's them or us. We know that because we have conquered the good within us.
00:48:58 They don't know this battle because they have rejected the evil within them.
00:49:07 Jane's dad.
00:49:10 I appreciate everyone who has come here for this day.
00:49:13 For my Jane.
00:49:15 Voice wobbled, deep breath.
00:49:18 She would be so touched if she could see what I see.
00:49:23 What I see is a community that, while it has imperfections of course, has joined together to mourn her.
00:49:30 I'd like to thank Stacy for her beautiful song.
00:49:33 I guarantee you that this is the last time I will ever listen to it, no offense.
00:49:40 Jane was special.
00:49:42 I know that all children are special to their fathers, their parents,
00:49:46 but I think we can all agree that there was something truly remarkable about her.
00:49:51 She had a spirit and a passion and a compassion that lit up the world as bright as things are today.
00:50:00 She took in all sorts of animals when she was little, all sorts of people when she was older.
00:50:06 I have wondered if she was empathetic to a fault, but I can't find any faults with her today, before all of you.
00:50:13 She will possess the eternal grace of never growing old, of her beauty never fading,
00:50:21 of the optimism and enthusiasm of her youth never decaying over the decades.
00:50:27 She will never know any more lack of concern, coldness, perhaps.
00:50:34 She will never see the exploitation of the world, the backs of...
00:50:38 Here we all knew that he was going to say "friends" and felt slight shame and great power that he refused to utter the word.
00:50:53 He gestured at his wife, who sat with a stiff back, but her legs spread as if about to give birth.
00:51:00 Marjorie and I have felt, feel, incredibly privileged to have known Jane for the short time she was in our lives.
00:51:09 When any of these disastrous happen, you do turn inwards and look for what might have changed things, what could have happened.
00:51:17 I can't bring her back, but I can at least hope to bring some wisdom to this gathering,
00:51:25 so that none of you will ever have to go through what we are going through, which I doubt will ever stop.
00:51:35 Of course we must live our lives knowing that the next step might be a landmine of tragedy, but walking on nonetheless.
00:51:42 Here Hamish stifled a giggle, because not even bottomless parental grief can excuse terrible analogies.
00:51:48 I dug my elbow into his side to poke out some more choked laughter.
00:51:53 Of course we must remember that life is short, and stay close to each other, and talk and listen as deeply and wisely as we can,
00:52:02 and make sure that secrets do not encircle each other and take us down.
00:52:09 And we must be strong in the face of, here he was about to say bullying, but his silence swelled a power once more, adversity.
00:52:22 And then, shockingly, he went off script.
00:52:29 He leaned forward, gripping the podium, his bald head was so bright with sunshine that it looked like he was missing half of his skull.
00:52:37 "Did any of you get—did she call any of you before she died?"
00:52:43 Her eyes widened, and we glanced at each other, wondering if any sane teenager would break ranks.
00:52:48 "What the hell is he asking? Does he really expect anyone to admit any kind of culpability in Jane's death?"
00:52:54 Our parents were wealthy. We knew all about the possibilities of getting sued.
00:52:59 Wild grief makes for exhausting lawsuits.
00:53:04 She deleted her call history before, but I would like to have a special relationship with anyone she might have called.
00:53:11 I don't know if we can get anything from the phone company, but if she tried, if she spoke with anyone,
00:53:15 I really, really need to know what was happening in her mind, please.
00:53:19 I know it's a weird thing to ask, but I don't know if anyone will—or if anyone, all of you, will be assembled again like this,
00:53:26 and we don't have any other children, so we will lose track of all of you.
00:53:29 We'll be like frozen in your brains, moving into the past with Jane."
00:53:34 There was a pause. Everyone was shocked. Parents shot warning glances at their children.
00:53:41 His voice deflated as he spoke. "It's a lot to ask, I know, but it would really help Marjorie, me,
00:53:51 if we knew anything about her last thoughts, Jane's last—"
00:53:56 A racking sob erupted from his chest and scattered his breaking words like a geyser.
00:54:01 He nodded rapidly, signaled his thanks, and stepped down.
00:54:08 Afterwards, at the reception, we all avoided him like the plague,
00:54:11 afraid he would wrestle us into some vestibule in demand we mind-read a dead brain.
00:54:18 And then, unholy of unholies, Marjorie, his wife, insisted that we stand in a circle,
00:54:26 awkward with the endless tables of finger food, and pray.
00:54:32 I didn't know a single religious person. Religion was lower caste,
00:54:36 something you turned to when a tornado wrecked your trailer.
00:54:40 Our parents rolled their eyes when her demand came, and I knew in that moment
00:54:45 that we would never see Jane's family again, because they had confessed their sentimental weakness.
00:54:51 And it didn't matter that it was sentimental—God knows we all get that from time to time.
00:54:55 It only mattered that it was weakness which was the one unforgivable sin in our lives.
00:55:03 Have they learned nothing from Jane's death, I thought.
00:55:08 And to ask that question was to answer it.
00:55:13 I remembered a man named Samuel, a business associate of my father's,
00:55:18 whose son had been killed by a gaggle of joy-riding drunk teenagers.
00:55:22 Samuel's son was jogging along a country road—he wanted to get in shape for his upcoming wedding—
00:55:27 and he was hit so hard by the truck that he was decapitated.
00:55:32 Samuel stood in the room—not unlike this one—and gave a reasonable speech,
00:55:36 and shed no tears, and ate heartily, and chatted about weather and politics,
00:55:40 and showed his usual irritation at his bumbling elder son.
00:55:44 And I remember sitting, chewing on a tiny quiche, and staring at Samuel,
00:55:50 wondering how he could swallow the life of his son and not even burp.
00:55:56 He was like an intransigent force of nature.
00:56:00 I imagined that maybe he cried bitterly while alone, but staring at him I thought,
00:56:07 "If you didn't know why he was here, what this reception is for,
00:56:11 you would have no idea that he had lost a son."
00:56:16 I imagined that if he were an actor he would be fired on the spot.
00:56:20 "For God's sake, man, you just lost a son. Don't act like you're bored in church."
00:56:26 No, religion was weakness.
00:56:30 It blunted your appetites and focused your ambitions and energies on the unreal.
00:56:35 The afterlife was a consolation prize for life's losers.
00:56:39 The meek might inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.
00:56:45 However, in the same way that Jane's dad could not mention our viciousness,
00:56:51 our weeding out of the weak, Jane's mom could not mention our atheism.
00:56:56 Well, not even atheism, more agnosticism,
00:57:01 because to be against something was to kind of affirm its existence or value.
00:57:09 She mentioned that she knew the crowd was full of those who questioned their faith,
00:57:14 but asked God above to take Jane into his ever-loving embrace
00:57:18 and to keep her safe and happy until she and her husband could join her again.
00:57:23 And I remember being struck by that word, "safe,"
00:57:28 because it implied that there were dangers in heaven,
00:57:33 wolves in sheep's clothing that hunted the angels, perhaps.
00:57:38 Oh, well, mothers are always paranoid about danger.
00:57:41 That was the root of my political power later on.
00:57:45 She was very good. I always gave her that.
00:57:49 And I found a new respect for religious faith in that moment,
00:57:52 where I had to shuffle around in order to avoid holding a boy's hand,
00:57:55 which would be mocked forever.
00:57:57 And that respect lasted me for the rest of my life.
00:58:03 I almost fell in love with her vision of protection and transcendence
00:58:11 and a loving universe and a purpose to morality and a strength in virtue.
00:58:17 Virtue has so little power in the world, or at least in my world,
00:58:23 that it needs an all-powerful protector or enforcer.
00:58:26 But that was not Marjorie's vision.
00:58:32 Dear Lord, we thank you for the gift of Jane
00:58:36 and accept your decision to bring her back to you.
00:58:40 We are sorry for whatever role we played in her despair
00:58:43 and ask you to forgive both her and us for the gift she
00:58:48 (she was going to say rejected or threw away, but no)
00:58:51 lost in her sorrow.
00:58:54 We ask that you bless the minds and hearts of everyone in this room,
00:58:58 many of whom question their faith or do not believe.
00:59:02 We ask that you (for some reason the word "bathe" came to mind,
00:59:06 but she rejected that as well)
00:59:09 surround them with your love and grace.
00:59:12 There are those in this room who do not feel loved
00:59:15 and may have never felt loved.
00:59:18 (This was a dangerous poke at our parents,
00:59:20 but I think Marjorie had accepted her coming ostracism.)
00:59:24 And that is not their fault.
00:59:26 That is just the fallen world we live in.
00:59:29 And there are those among us who do not believe in evil.
00:59:32 Please counsel them about the danger of this,
00:59:35 the danger of losing what makes us most human,
00:59:38 our yearning for the universal, for the eternal,
00:59:41 for the incomprehensible and beautiful.
00:59:44 Fill everyone's heart with all that is most yearning for good,
00:59:49 for redemption, and yes, for forgiveness,
00:59:54 in part for what happened to my Jane.
00:59:57 Everyone has free will, I know that, but we all (she was going to say touch)
01:00:04 have an effect on each other.
01:00:07 We are all bound together in everything that we do.
01:00:10 And if there is a meaning to this senseless death,
01:00:12 it must be that we vow to be good to each other,
01:00:15 to stand up for what is right,
01:00:17 to avoid salaciousness and gossip and that which destroys the good.
01:00:22 When we turn to the eternal,
01:00:25 that is our only strength to rise above the pettiness and conformity
01:00:28 demanded by what surrounds us.
01:00:34 My father's face was dark with anger.
01:00:37 I saw him have an impulse to move towards Marjorie,
01:00:40 but he was restrained by... something.
01:00:44 And I've never before in my life seen him stopped in such a manner.
01:00:51 Was it respect for her grief? Was it... her faith?
01:00:59 She said, "My children, you are young.
01:01:03 You think you know everything,
01:01:06 and I am a crazy old lady with crosses in her eyes,
01:01:09 but I have learned something that you do not know yet.
01:01:13 You must never compromise what you know to be right."
01:01:18 Her voice lowered, and despite ourselves, we leaned forward to hear.
01:01:22 We thought she was funny. We knew she was not.
01:01:28 I know you are all scared of each other, in a way,
01:01:32 and that's why the least among you have the most power.
01:01:38 It starts so early. I've been thinking about Jane,
01:01:41 how I went back to work just seven weeks after she was born,
01:01:45 and I put her in a daycare, and she cried and cried.
01:01:48 But I did what you do. I believed everyone around me.
01:01:52 I sacrificed my girl, my motherhood, for money we didn't need,
01:01:57 and a career that doesn't matter.
01:02:00 I can't go back.
01:02:03 Marjorie's voice wobbled dangerously.
01:02:07 I had all my files sent to me.
01:02:10 I'm shredding them because I'm broken.
01:02:13 I held a newsletter I had written,
01:02:15 and I remembered staying late and missing half her birthday party when she was five.
01:02:20 And when I came, she couldn't stop crying,
01:02:23 and everything was ruined.
01:02:25 And now this newsletter I sacrificed her for is going into the shredder,
01:02:30 and she is going into the--
01:02:34 We all flinched at the unspoken word, "ground."
01:02:40 And you will be tempted by that as well,
01:02:43 to give up your natural bonds for cash that just evaporates.
01:02:49 I gave up my daughter for a career, and now I have neither.
01:02:54 I'm just someone on a cross for you to learn from.
01:02:58 Why was she so susceptible to what you said?
01:03:02 Because we lacked a bond.
01:03:07 She bonded with you because she had to bond with the children in her daycare.
01:03:13 Her face grew luminous with wonder at her sudden thought.
01:03:17 And that is too much power for you,
01:03:21 to have you all bonded with each other rather than with your parents.
01:03:25 If that is the case, I don't want to presume.
01:03:29 She briefly genuflected before the altar of offense before plunging on.
01:03:36 It really is about love,
01:03:39 like all the songs and the poems and the sentimentality and the greeting cards say.
01:03:45 Jane died for lack of love. It's true!
01:03:49 She cried at her pale husband.
01:03:51 You're busy, I'm busy, we have money and business cards and status and everything,
01:03:55 except our daughter!
01:03:57 And even if she had lived, she would have been gone from us.
01:04:00 Come on, how often do you talk to your parents?
01:04:02 You did the same thing, they did the same thing,
01:04:05 daycare and peer pressure and emptiness and ambition.
01:04:08 We are going about it all wrong and I don't know why, I don't know who benefits.
01:04:14 Her eyes widened slightly.
01:04:17 Well, of course, you benefit from power over each other, but it's not real.
01:04:27 And then she could have had a real moment of power
01:04:31 and detonated our entire social structure,
01:04:35 but instead she turned her eyes away from us to the ceiling
01:04:39 and launched herself into irrelevance by pleading with God once more.
01:04:45 I don't even remember what she said.
01:04:47 I recall feeling great relief and some vague grief at a fundamental missed opportunity.
01:05:02 Jane's funeral was an exercise in power.
01:05:08 The petty evils we had all done remained unspoken.
01:05:14 Sentimentality and self-pity and the preening of self-conscious grief ruled the day.
01:05:22 Nature blazed the scene in blinding sunlight.
01:05:26 Everything continued.
01:05:28 The planet rolled through nothing, like words through our minds,
01:05:33 and we settled deeply into the grooves of our future,
01:05:37 where good people only had to satisfy their own scant conscience, not virtue itself.
01:05:47 And I wonder now, as I have not done for years,
01:05:51 though I suppose it has been a deep-seated thought of mine for decades,
01:05:55 just why Jane's dad said nothing
01:06:01 while Jane's mother almost said everything.
01:06:09 Knowing that the world has somehow silenced the virtuous
01:06:16 gave me all the certainty I needed to become president.
01:06:25 [BLANK_AUDIO]