Rick's January Tirade
How to Be a Success
The gods have always shown a distressing tendency to favor their
most obnoxious creatures. Granted, this is the opinion of a
well-credentialed cynic. But any rational being who makes a hobby of
observing nature and its antics would arrive at the same conclusion:
the creatures most loved by the gods are, in general, among the most
ruthless, repugnant, diabolical and intrinsically worthless ever to
infest this unfortunate globe.
Just consider, if you will, some of nature's all-time success
stories. Mosquitoes. Rats. Fleas. Termites. Houseflies. Cockroaches.
Starlings (the cockroaches of the bird world). I've stopped short of
adding humans to the list; more about them later.
These favored creatures share a few key traits. They're ugly.
They're aggressive. They multiply with demonic fervor. They exploit
their niche until they reign supreme. They spread disease and/or
discomfort wherever they go. They drive more sensitive and innately
superior creatures into decline or extinction. And they're virtually
indestructible, at least on the collective level. The gods love 'em—no
question about it.
The evidence is convincing enough to make you believe in the
existence of a Providence as malign as he is inscrutable... a
celestial jester who must be chortling this very moment at our
efforts to fathom his dark motives. Why would the Creator of the
universe, presumably a sagacious dude, concoct natural laws that
ensure the triumph of the most reprehensible, the most conniving,
the least admirable of creatures? What could account for his
questionable taste in organisms?
While sweet bluebirds swoon from their perches and cuddly pandas
vanish from their bamboo groves, while magnificent tigers and
elephants cling to the precipice of oblivion... the gross starlings
of the world thrive and entrench themselves ever more securely. They
spread their genes. They exult. They squawk their triumph over the
finer and nobler creatures that fall upon nature's compost heap.
Surely something's amiss in the grand scheme.
Are you starting to see a disturbing parallel here, or is it just
me? Could it be that, within the confines of our own species, the
Creator favors those individuals who exhibit the same uncouth and
belligerent traits that ensure success in the wild? Say it ain't so,
God! Say it ain't so.
Look at the Hollywood moguls who grow plump by pandering to the
most abysmal tastes... the local car dealers and roofing contractors
who vault to the top of the socioeconomic heap by crushing the
competition... the oily politicians who grease their way to term
after term... the glib daytime talk-show hosts and their ever-fecund
lowlife guests... the simian pop-music idols and film stars who earn
more from a month's work than their average fan would amass in a
millennium.
Meanwhile, as always, artists and writers and other fine-boned
folk struggle to keep their one-room flats and their sanity. But
even within this beleaguered tribe, the universal laws prevail. A
shrewd, aggressive writer who cranks out potboilers, or sitcoms, or
novels about lawyers, or how-to books on building a better sundeck,
will invariably enjoy a higher standard of living—will be more
likely to thrive, enjoy a surfeit of self-esteem, find a desirable
mate, and pass along his genes—than, for example, an introspective
cynic who crafts morose monthly essays in obscurity, knowing that
he'll never join the storied ranks of humorists who regale their
fans with tales of exploding cows.
If you want to be favored by the gods, you have to emulate the
starlings and the cockroaches. They care not for truth, beauty or
the New York Times Book Review section. They view the world as a
territory to be subdued, not enjoyed or passively appreciated. They
subsist on grit, not wit. They revel in their ugliness. They have
vitality, they make life miserable for others, they breed copiously,
and they prevail.
Of course, they all die eventually. But so do we. And guess which
side has racked up the most points?
If you want to be a success, think like a cockroach.
