On human relationships

There is no such thing as a sacred human friendship. Despite society's constant parroting of the over-worn adage, "No man is an island" and "We are all social animals", the truth is that such phrases only serve to ensure that human society as a whole stays knit together; they promise a Holy Grail of transcendent understanding that awaits one at the end of a long and consuming liaison with members of our fellow species, one which has to fulfill all the criteria of "love" and "connection". There is no transcendent understanding. Society has warped the notion of human bonding through the media, through books, through every possible medium it can possibly exploit, confusing us until we have a nebulous notion of what it means to be a member of the society which exploits us to maintain its overall structure. Some things are good and we know it: the soft murmur of love from our mothers, the unconditional protection from our fathers, the laughter we share with friends after a day that has, once again, run us to the ground and left its marks etched across our spines. But then there is war and pestilence, and nations that exhort their people to "conform to the greater good of society" and to "go out there and slaughter some Jews/Viets/Communists/Americans-in-the-World-Trade-Center". And suddenly, all the talk of peace and bonding seems to have turned on its head. Now, there is the slaughter of other civilizations simply because they are outside the protective sphere that is "our society" and our "sphere of human relationship". It is the twisting of our human need for identification and bond through a certain perverted patriotism. Why do we identify so strongly with others of like ilk? For the ones with whom we bond with and belong, we will kill and fight anyone who comes from "the outside". It is all an illusion, all a lie. Friendship is merely a mutated concept of the human bonds for survival. Histrionic emotions and a helpless longing for that obfuscated yet oh-so-appealing idea of synergy and oneness ultimately destroy us pilgrims searching for the Holy Rock of the Final Connection; that idealistic, foolish, abstract conceptualization that naive, neurotic armchair philosophers have fed to us. They have trapped us into a quandary: There are no friends without enemies, and as long as the idea of friendship exists, then the idea of the enemy will never disappear. A few we will take to our side; but there must always be the contrast of the black against the white, and if no convenient enemy presents himself, we will create our own. Spread the word, and may there come the day when someone points us to a Muslim and says, "shoot", may we answer: "Why?" And when the Muslim captain points to us and says, "shoot the heathen", may their soldiers, too, answer: "Why?" Why indeed? Society is for the promotion of survival; why should we throw lives away for the abstractions that some abstract leader at the top of some abstract social ladder has decreed of some conceptual importance? Why do we allow ourselves to be twisted all across the breadth of our sacred psyche? The majority of us are fed a lie so that the minority on top may stand atop our backs and direct our efforts. No more lies; no more cheap, mass-production of the words "love" and "friendship", "enemy" and "war". We fight the ones who should be fought, we love the ones who, together with us, promote our earthly conditions. We will not be pointed towards people decreed "others" and treated to the hunting horn; no more shall any collection of people upon this earth be taken in by the disease of nationalism. I want to know that it does not take an alien invasion, a convenient manifestation of our concept of "the enemy", for the peoples of this world to unite. I want to know that we can think critically for ourselves, and realize the absurdity of pitting nation on nation, bloc on bloc, neighbor on neighbor, while blind the whole time to the people who have spooned us treacle-sweet lies of "my friend, your friend". We have forgotten the ancient rule of the playground: If you are a bully, expect to be ostracized. If you are a friend, expect to be welcomed. But somewhere along the line, a smiling, loud, confident sociopath put his arms around our shoulders and created barriers where none had existed before. We allowed him to draw us away, seduced by his leadership. It was not long before we looked upon those playgrounders who were not with us and came to a slow realization: they were now "others", and nothing would ever be the same again. We must understand the true meaning of the phrase, "Nothing is true, everything is permitted". It is not the idea that we go out and do whatever whim commands us to; on the contrary, the is the understanding that all things, personal desire and far-reaching society included, are but colors in the wind. It commands us to be wise, to see past illusions placed on our eyes by others, and to make our own choices.