Rick's October Tirade
Grand Illusions
The light is fading fast as your group approaches the cavelike
dwelling of Father Almazar, the aged hermit-philosopher, high in the
mountains of Karastan.
The wise man is expecting you. He smiles through his ancient
beard and invites you to step inside. The room is more spacious than
you expected, and not nearly as primitive; you're surprised to see
that the stone walls are lined with electronic equipment as well as
bookshelves. You and your companions settle onto a pile of Oriental
rugs while Father Almazar lights an oil lamp and takes his seat
beneath a large screen. The old sage begins to speak.
"So you've come to seek enlightenment from this withered
sack of flesh. Very well, my children. Hear these truths and
remember them, so that you may go forth and instruct the future
generations accordingly.
"Nature is a perfect paradise – a paradise of incomparable
peace and harmony. Our maker created the fishes of the deep, the
beasts of the plains, and the fowls of the air as perfect
expressions of his infinite love and intelligence. He provides for
his creatures from the abundance of his creation, so that all may be
nourished and enjoy long life under his benevolent protection."
Meanwhile, on the screen behind Father Almazar, a charging lion
catches a terrified young zebra, clamping its jaws around the
zebra's throat while two other lions help bring it down. As the
feeding frenzy begins, vultures and jackals gather in the
background. The old sage continues...
"We, the children of man and woman, are born equal, and we
grow to our maturity with the assurance that our small lives will
make a difference upon the face of the earth. Know that hard work,
talent, virtue, patience and loyalty are amply rewarded, and that
you may overcome any obstacle through hope and perseverance. Poverty
is no disgrace; for the poor are happy in their simplicity, and
wealth is a vexation to the spirit."
On the screen, three young executives hurry down a corridor and
around a corner, inadvertently bumping into a pensive 60-year-old
maintenance man pushing a broom. They chastise him for getting in
the way, then snicker among themselves as they leave the building
and hop into a sports utility vehicle. Father Almazar resumes his
narration.
"Happiness and fulfillment come naturally to those who act
with kindness. You need not fear loneliness, my children, for you
are destined to meet your soulmate as surely as a running brook
finds the sea. When you fall in love, all your days will be as the
blossoming of a cherry tree in the spring. And wherever two lovers
create a dwelling place together, peace and contentment will reside
always under their roof."
Meanwhile, on the screen, you see a montage of solitary, immobile
men and women staring vacantly at flickering televisions in dark
rooms. One after another their faces appear, eyes devoid of hope,
too numb to despair. Now the screen cuts to a bickering couple, then
two of them, then four, eight, and sixteen, each gesticulating with
greater intensity and rage. The old philosopher continues.
"Health is your birthright. You thrive in your body as
easily as you walk upon the land, and without effort do you grow
strong under the sun. You need only bathe your mind in genial
thoughts as you would bathe your limbs in warm water; no disease can
prevail against you in the prime of your years, and you may enjoy
the ripeness of old age with undiminished vigor."
On the screen, a middle-aged man lies open-mouthed in an
emergency room bed, tubes running out of his nose and arms, while
medical professionals feverishly attempt to jump-start him back to
life. Apparently oblivious to the depressing images, Father Almazar
continues...
"When death comes, it steals upon you as a welcome sleep at
the end of a long day; for what is death but a slumber filled with
dreams that delight the spirit? And as you relinquish life, you
enter a realm of eternal light and joy. You partake of unimagined
bliss in the company of those you've loved, and your soul
encompasses all the knowledge and wisdom of the universe."
The screen shows a coffin being unearthed and opened, its
occupant reduced to crumbling bones.
This is more than you can stand; you and your companions begin
murmuring among yourselves. The old sage acknowledges your disquiet
and quickly addresses your concerns.
"I see, my children... some of you are growing uneasy. You
begin to have doubts, exactly as I had planned. But which do you
doubt – my words, or the pictures on the screen? My words, of
course. For you are accustomed to believing all that you see upon a
screen.
"In your land, the screen is your guide through the
wilderness of life. It tells you that a mouthwash will help you find
enchantment with the opposite sex, and you believe that. The screen
proclaims that you should be thinner than you are, or more affluent,
or a bleached blonde, and you agree. Your life should be an endless
party on the beach, it tells you, and you nod your head. You could
be happy and fulfilled if you had more voluminous breasts –
especially if you are a woman. Gray hair is, of course, a living
death. Baldness is beyond death, but you can join the Hair Club for
Men and be restored to vigorous life. Buy the revolutionary new
AbMaster and know the exultation of self-love. Drive a luxury
Infiniti sedan with fragrant leather seats, and your neighbors will
regard you as a community leader; only then can you call yourself a
success.
"When you watch your favorite football team win a game, you
believe that you share in their achievement. Yet you have not for a
minute stepped upon the playing field! You even begin to believe
that the people you watch on the screen are your friends; that Jerry
Seinfeld and his gang would welcome you into their booth at the
coffee shop, or that Ally McBeal would recognize you on the street
and rush to greet you. These are the saddest illusions of all!
"Upon my screen I showed you the ugliness and unfairness of
life, even as I described for you its beauty. You found it easier to
believe the screen, when in reality BOTH accounts are a mixture of
truth and illusion. We prosper and we fail. We fall in and out of
love. We enjoy health for a time, then lose it like an old glove. We
know nothing of life after death, yet neither are we certain that
our souls are extinguished. Life is neither as entirely beautiful as
you heard, nor as entirely unfair as you saw.
"Let me tell you a secret. It is an easy matter to accept
both the goodness and the unfairness of the world with an
indifferent heart; then you are respected as a realist. Just as easy
is it to overlook the unfair, for then you enjoy the sunny life of
an optimist. If you delude yourself that you can overcome the
unfair, you gain a reputation as an activist. But to see the unfair
and rail against it – while admitting that YOU CAN DO NOTHING
ABOUT IT – that is the difficult and thankless calling of the
cynic. Your reward is that everyone hates you.
"Disappointment is your lot, for you will never be able to
close the eternal gap between what is and what SHOULD be. Will you
despair? Sometimes, yes. But seek out others like yourselves, and be
glad if you can reap a moment or two of rueful mirth from your
disillusionment. After all, my friends, it is devilish fun to
rant."
Thus spake Father Almazar the philosopher, for he was a cynic,
too.
Here's the complete archive of Rick Bayan's immortal tirades for your reading pleasure:
December 2002 — Hello, I Must Be Going
November 2002 — A Raving Moderate
August 2002 — Is Western Civilization Worth Saving?
July 2002 — To Scam or Be Scammed
June 2002 — I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
May 2002 — Speechophobia
April 2002 — Fanatics on Parade
March 2002 — The Prestige Gap: A Lament
February 2002 — On Becoming a Dullard
January 2002 — Art for Slackers
December 2001 — An Unsolicited Christmas Card
November 2001 — A Tale of Two Tribes
October 2001 — On the Fallen Towers
August 2001 — Why Do We Bother?
June 2001 — Notes from a Doomed Planet
May 2001 — The Museum of Discarded Names
April 2001 — Indecision
March 2001 — A Slight Case of Insanity
February 2001 — Letter to a Conscientious Critic
January 2001 — The Cynic's Inaugural Address
December 2000 — The 50th Tirade
November 2000 — Travel Advisory
October 2000 — Beyond Work
September 2000 — More Work
August 2000 — Work
July 2000 — The Doves' Nest
June 2000 — Great Affectations
May 2000 — Tale of a Virtual Village
April 2000 — The World Is My Obstacle Course
March 2000 — A Living Heck
February 2000 — On the Treachery
of Time
January 2000 — A Letter to the
Future
December 99 — Rare Bird
November 99 — Not Just Another
Obscure Ethnic Group
October 99 — Extinction Reconsidered
September 99 — Good Life, Bad
Life, Better Life
August 99 — Household Relics:
An Elegy
July 99 — A Meditation on Profanity
June 99 — In Praise of Sloth
May 99 — A Bug's Death
April 99 — Obligations!
March 99 — The Courage to Be Ordinary
February 99 — A Grave Story
January 99 — What's Left for
Men?
December 98 — On the Uses of
Friends
November 98 — A Cynic's Thanksgiving
October 98 — Grand Illusions
September 98 — Filth
August 98 — Will the Real God
Please Stand Up?
July 98 — Adventures in Downsizing
June 98 — Lady Longevity
May 98 — Uniquely Human, Uniquely
Clueless
April 98 — The Mathematics of Excess
March 98 — Humbuggery
February 98 — Love and the Single
Cynic
January 98 — By the Sweat of
Your Brow
December 97 — Is Suffering Unfashionable?
November 97 — The Tao of Housekeeping
October 97 — The Sensory Deprivation
Blues
September 97 — Down with Natural
Selection!
August 97 — Noise
July 97 — On Eating Our Fellow Creatures
June 97 — Trouble in Book-Land
May 97 — Interview with an Unemployable
Man
April 97 — The Cynic's Dream
March 97 — Inequalities
February 97 — Flesh and Mortality
January 97 — How to Be a Success
December 96 — Why I Can't Hate
Christmas
November 96 — How I Became a Cynic
