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The Madness of Civilization
How Civilization Has Gone Awry and How We Can Cope with It
Jarred awake by an alarm clock, I scramble through my morning routine then get out the door. I have to be at work in forty minutes and the commute takes thirty-five. That’s assuming there aren’t any traffic jams on the highway. If there are, well, I’ll be late. I fight back a tinge of guilt as I pull out of the driveway. I burn through a lot of fossil fuel going back and forth to work, kicking a lot of greenhouse gases into the environment in the process. But job opportunities are mostly in the city where I can’t afford to buy a house, and electric cars are still too expensive. Oh well.
On the way to work, a driver drifts into my lane while talking on the phone. I slam on my breaks. Another driver shoots past me going at least twenty miles over the speed limit. Still another tailgates while I’m passing an overloaded truck. I turn on the radio to take my mind off these antics. The news is full of terrorist threats, bickering politicians, economic woes, murders and mayhem across the country and abroad. So I switch to music instead. That helps. I roll off the highway with four minutes to spare. I lay my finger on a biometric time clock and wave to the cameras as I walk the long corridor to my station. My besieged co-workers, already deep into their shifts and frazzled, greet…
