Of Leaves and Trees

Most people (it would seem the vast majority) resent the hell out of someone else being “above themselves.” You’ll often hear people complain, “How’d that dork get to be a Major,”...OR “How’d THAT idiot get to run this department,”...etc.

Likewise the vast majority of people, deep down inside, revile the very entertainers they claim to “adore” the most!

It’s EXACTLY the way you might expect a leaf to resent the tree. The leaf NEEDS the tree, but it’s a rare that any of those that NEED something actually LOVE that which they are dependent upon. In fact, you might well imagine that just about every leaf would rejoice (if they could) should their tree come down with Dutch Elm Disease or Oak Blight….same way “fans” LOVE nothing more than seeing their “favorite celebrities” go down in flames.” It feeds that natural fan/leaf resentment. That’s why gossip shows and celebrity magazines sell so BIG! People LOVE seeing Kirstie Alley as a big fat slob…or Lindsay Lohan drunk and looking trashed. That’s why most of these stars (trees) tend to be very wary around all these leaves (fans).

It’s the same reason that while many workers hate their bosses, they still WANT someone to be “up there,” they NEED someone to be “up there”...to take the fall when the entity eventually goes down in flames, which all entities eventually do. Then they most definitely want it to be someone else taking that fall.

It also explains why increasing distrust and even outright hatred for the government is so expected and really, quite sensible. People who depend on something tend to resent the hell out of that something...at least if they have any sense and any self respect. People in earlier times didn’t hate government so much because there was so much less of it...they rarely came in contact with it. Nobody was telling the pioneer what to do and what not to do.

BUT today, with so many people depending on Social Security, pensions, Medicare, and all kinds of relief, with government running the education system, paving the roads, building the bridges, inspecting your housing, you mattresses, your food...well, most sensible, self respecting people are going to revile that entity and see it as “monstrous.” The more people need something, the more they tend to resent and detest it.

Aldous Huxley was right when he graphed man (the individual) vs. mankind over time. While time is very KIND to mankind...conditions tend to improve over time (life in 1230 AD was certainly somewhat better than life in 528AD and life in 1962 was almost certainly much improved over life in 1793...time is very UNKIND to man, the individual, as more automation and more rules and bureaucracy tend to constrict the individual.

Again, the most self-aware people and those with the greatest amount of self-respect tend to be ardent individualists. Those sad conformists who take whatever new indignities are cast upon them, the ones who mindlessly repeat the prattlings of accepted dogma are always in the majority, or so it seems and it’s why free thought has and probably will always have to face a strong wind of resistance and it’s a cold, bitter wind coming out of those northeastern fields of conformity.