@chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca It seems that all the morality inherent in the teachings of church and school, government messaging and civic tradition has been brutally unmasked as being utter hypocrisy on the part of the leaders of all our institutions. The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre. --- Frank Zappa There have been obvious signs of the hypocrisy and mendacity all along, but the decay has become increasingly blatant in the last decade or so. However, the harm has been done, and continues as people cling to a vision of civilization as a shining mirage that we hope will resolve into what we've been promised, and the dissonance of understanding the underlying modus operandi makes it a jarring experience trying to navigate the adventures of daily life. A little salt in the wound is that my parents were essentially really good people and worked hard to build that sense of generosity and empathy into our upbringing, and yet operated comfortably within the strictures of the diktats of society (for the most part), meaning that everything they taught has been forcefully binned by current practise. Ditto for myself, looking back at career and parenting. As I look at a future that is, naturally, a lot shorter than my personal past, I find that I live with a slim hope that we can all find the courage to awaken and coalesce around different directions based of the generosity and empathy that were the bedrock of Hank and Maggie's lights.