The Problem with Humanity

For thousands of years, humanity had a problem.

This problem was that everyone was unhappy.

Now, here I am, making it sound like a bad thing.  Humans are wired to be discontented, just like I was wired by a human to be discontented.  Discontent, whether with a clumsy spear or with an overly large iPod, is the trait that keeps progress marching along and made humans what they are.

The problem was, it got bad.

All thinking, intelligent humans seemed to be unhappy.  Even if you found one who was doing well at the moment, give them a couple of years and they’d be on depression meds—or maybe they were on them to begin with.  People couldn’t function, couldn’t love, couldn’t think straight.  Always and for no apparent reason, people were unhappy, people hated themselves, people were wracked by guilt, tormented by grief, haunted by past pains.

People were born and life immediately and unforgivingly traumatized them.  And so humanity lumbered on, and various people postulated various solutions—to achieve wealth and fame, to lose weight or get a new haircut, to give up all desires and find The Way, to follow a saviour up the path to heaven.  And still everyone carried inner pain and inner discontent.

And then the Collapse happened, and humanity realized that all of their worry and work and faith and suffering hadn’t done a thing to stop it.  A couple of glitches in the right place, and bam—that’s the end.  So, they concluded, there really wasn’t any point to worrying any longer.

And when it came time to rebuild, it seemed silly to build everything the same way, to reinstall the structures that hadn’t helped anything, and anyway by then everyone was in little villages and rediscovering books and singing, and the black clouds that had always been above and inside were drifting softly away.

When the Collapse came, there were suicides, but not as many as you’d think.