Once Again, Nothing Is Solved

“Can I get the penne primavera? And please be quick, I have to be at a rally at two,” said the youth.

“I'm sorry, but we've unfortunately run out of the penne today. We'd be happy to substitute another pasta for you, free of charge,” said the waiter.

“It's to force the government to recognize the refugee rights of Iranians displaced by the conflict in Syria. It's disgusting how everyone categorizes them all as 'Syrian' refugees, when in fact 2.9% of them are at least 1/16th Iranian by birth. What an atrocity, for those 2.9% to be so misidentified.”

“How noble of you, but unfortunately, like I said, we are totally out of the penne. Can I get you another dish perhaps?”

“And then after that I'm chaperoning a gender neutral dance for inner city elementary students. During the slow dancing, we make sure their hands are at identical levels on the other's body, to free them from the crippling gender binary stereotypes forced upon youth by the patriarchal norms of modern school dances. Our aim is a postmodern school dance world, where the 'man' does not lead the 'woman,' nor the 'woman' the 'man,' because leadership in any form encroaches on the freedom of identity of the individual spirit.”

“There's no penne.”

“What?!? In this day and age, who would have thought an Italian-American restaurant would be so closed-minded towards a paying customer?”

“Pardon me?”

“Don't you know that I identify as someone who eats penne for lunch on Tuesdays?”

“I don't think that's a legitimate excuse not to simply order a chicken Parmesan.”

“Now you expect me to just conform to social expectation about what does or does not constitute a lunch on Tuesday? You fascist! The most closed-minded fascist I've seen yet, and trust me, I see close-minded fascists constantly.”

“I only want to take your order. Company policy here at Mustafa's Kitchen Italiano is that we never desert an unhappy customer until we've reached the most satisfactory resolution to their problem.”

“Well if you think I'm going to compromise my values, my freedom, and who I am inside, just to fit into some normalized view of how a person should live their life, then you're on. Penne for lunch on Tuesdays is not a lifestyle choice; it's how I was born.”

At the next table over, sat Darrell, sated by his chicken Parmesan. His hair was gray, hairline retreating like Napoleon from Russia, and he had consumed several beers with his food. “It's just fuckin' lunch.”

As a voice for those without one, the youth had a decision to make: relieve the older gentleman of his likely ignorant worldview, or fall silent, fail to do so, and be sentenced to a self-loathing introspection, shared only with the internet and pretty women at bars. It was a gambit, with either the old man's likely ignorance, or the youth's commitment to the eradication of the antiquated opinions of those he supposed ignorant, playing the pawn.

“Excuse me? Maybe your generation found it appropriate to bow to authority like lemmings, but today's enlightened youth understand our rights, especially our freedom of speech, and know that we must no longer be bullied by the shadow puppeteers of the corporate-consumerist complex that became rich and powerful feeding our parents and grandparents from the depraved teat of greed. You say it's just lunch? Wrong. It's an affront to the sensibilities of a conscious and empowered global generation.”

“No, it isn't.”

“Look, I understand that you're from a different time, and that all these important changes might be really difficult for you to grasp. I don't want to demean you. I only want to make sure you don't accidentally demean others. And that's what you did to me with your lunch comment.”

“Wait, so when did we figure out how to time travel?”

“What? I don't believe we did.”

“So then what do you mean 'I'm from a different time.' If that were the case, then me sitting here, having my lunch ruined, would only be possible if I'd time traveled.”

“I guess...I didn't mean it literally. I mean you were raised in another time, a less accepting one, so adapting to this age of progress is especially difficult. The mind becomes rigid with age. It's not your fault.”

“You think just because I've been alive for a long time, that I can't understand that some men are biologically compelled to love and sleep with other men, and that every individual is a unique mix of gender elements?”

“Yes, I do.”

“That doesn't seem very open-minded of you?”

“Oh no, I'm extremely open-minded. Trust me. In fact, I'm so open-minded that I make a point of talking to all the elderly people I meet, to teach them a lesson about how to be more tolerant. I've taken two sociology courses, and I'm halfway through my first semester of gender studies, so it's only fair to help educate you people.”

“What makes you think our present circumstances are so special? What separates you from every other group of college kids?”

“You wouldn't understand. There's an energy in my generation. We're willing to fight back against the powerful people who have prostituted the planet and its people for personal gain. We're tired of being disregarded simply because we're young.”

“So you're tired of people underestimating your ability to add value to the world strictly based on your age?”

“Precisely.”

“How curious.”

“We have a new and spiritual connection with the underappreciated and oppressed people of the planet. We understand their plight, and are willing to make sacrifices to change the system.”

“Where does the connection with these people come from?”

“I believe it's because they're so grateful for people like me-,”

“People like you? You mean white straight males who refuse to utilize opportunities to contribute to the economy because they're insecure about the fact that the only reason they've been given these opportunities is due to historical, social and gender factors that are entirely void of personal merit, and based on the subjugation of women and non-whites, so they turn their insecure guilt inwards on the members of their socio-cultural ancestry, the vast majority of whom are largely blameless or at worst guilty of the biologically ingrained biases that we all possess, while failing to see the crippling irony in their belief that the world's discriminated people are doomed to remain discriminated against unless their cause is championed by a child of privilege from the dominant class?”

“No, I mean social activists.”

“Right, sorry. Proceed”

“-people like me who really care about the disenfranchised, the diseased, the distant and the distressed. They understand that we won't betray their trust, persecute them for different beliefs, or rob them of their land and resources.”

“You talk with these people often?”

“I signed over 700 petitions last year, including one to bring wireless internet to sub-Saharan Africa, so they could see all the petitions we've signed regarding human rights violations in the region.”

“So what exactly does all of this have to do with your lunch protest? I thought most hunger strikes had loftier purposes than simple starvation.”

“And this one does. The final frontier of human rights is freedom of identity. Any encroachment on my being able to live exactly the life I want is unacceptable, and if I'm going to cave on an issue like penne for lunch on Tuesdays, how can I have the confidence to sleep serenely knowing that I have compromised who I am? Lunch is just a metaphor for the really important issues.”

“Yes, but you aren't using it metaphorically. Metaphors inevitably distort a point to simplify it. You're treating it as though this is of equal importance to an immigrant practicing cultural beliefs in their new home. ”

“That's because it is. Like I said, the final frontier of human rights is freedom of identity. Penne is my bisexuality, my heritage in a new land, my humanity.”

“What if our fine waiter here identifies as someone who dutifully informs customers who have ordered penne, that the restaurant is out of penne? That seems no different than what you're asserting.”

“Well...yeah but...I guess it is different somehow. Because if conflicting identities were allowed within my theory of freedom of identity, I imagine it would lead to fighting. Perhaps it's because he doesn't understand that his true identity is not as a waiter at Mustafa's Kitchen Italiano. There must have been a desperation in him to slum to this level, and that is the fault of the socio-economic-political-military-industrial-complexity of the global capitalist system, not of the worker.”

“Are you ever concerned that you have been raised to believe in things, as opposed to being raised to think?”

“No, because that's not true. Like I said, I'm very open minded.”

“You just seem to permit everything, instead of thinking critically about any of it. That's not thought, it's mindlessness.”

“Critical thought leads to discrimination, because it inevitably creates hierarchies, the ultimate structure for systemic oppression.”

“Well touche, but you've managed to disprove me while also undermining your own point.”

“One of my favourite quotes from Hermann Stiegler, the early 20th century social theorist.”

“I stand corrected; the boy is but a parrot. To think is the greatest pleasure, yet so many forgo it entirely. No wonder we're so unhappy.”

“It's fine that you don't understand, but there's no need to be rude. I'm a well-educated member of a special age, and I experience the bitterness of the elderly each day as I converse with them. But I forge on.”

“The main problem with these universities is that they dope you kids up with theory and facts, but they don't teach you what it's like to be alive outside their strange little bubble. Of course you're special, but everyone is. Every generation has their own radical narrative, but all it is is growing up. The real revolution is personal, coming of age. It unites us in its universality, but isolates us in the details. Until now, your life has been plagued by change. Finally you can see clear and, where there once was the chaos of a hurricane, is the glassy sea spread before you. Strive for the horizon, because this is the rest of your life.”

“What's the matter with change? Maybe you aren't equipped to handle it, but it's how we reach a diverse future, and you must either accept it, or die bitter. I bet you even voted for that fucking lunatic didn't you.”

“In fact, I did.”

“How dare you. You're part of the problem, not me. How dare you disrespect immigrants, women, the world's beautiful ethnicities, liberals, optimists, pacifists, our country, democracy, decency, leadership, sanity, rational thought, the privilege of being alive, and me personally. In what world is that man fit to lead?”

“In what world is any of this about leadership?”

“It's a presidential election.”

“Politics ceased to be about leadership as soon as the first ape got laid for leading the tribe. If anything, national politics now compares to a demented thermodynamics, with sensitive and egotistical atoms. No single vote matters, we vote on the basis of spite, and national narratives appear spontaneously to dominate the zeitgeist. No wonder it seems mad and futile to expect true leaders to emerge.”

“You are the epitome of a hypocrite! All of those things are what drove the election of a man undermining the foundations of global democracy!”

“Oh, don't be so dramatic. All of us are just looking to be happy, safe, fed, and loved. There are many roads to that paradise, but they're difficult. Fools have stolen this dream from us, and used the varying paths to paradise to divide us. Can you imagine a more childish system than one which reduces the world to a choice from two absolute alternatives? At least true tyrants force people into action to earn their freedoms. We sit on our asses, flipping a coin, believing the choice is between heaven and hell, when really it is between a three or four pronged fork in the back. The shame is how angry and helpless we feel when, in theory, we have all the control.”

“But regardless of whether the system is broken or not, can't you see that one option would have been benign and the other potentially catastrophic? Your duty is not merely to yourself, especially when you don't need to fear suffering. Even from our exchange today, I know that you understand what you've done was wrong.”

“Absolutely not. We seem to be at the mercy of possibility, and this means that any control we have is fleeting. I seized mine to vote against my better judgment, because I didn't feel comfortable with the path we were taking. Sure progress may be stunted for a few years, but we seem to have reached a fundamental limitation of the merits of democracy, and I took a chance at upsetting the inertia. Making the sensible choice would have led to more of the same, but the status quo has been consistently worse for our people, hence the support for radical change. It seems time to request more from our governance, and I was willing to risk short term disaster in order to achieve peace, welfare, and satisfaction into the far future.”

“But the disaster is not yours, and any martyrs will not look like you.”

“I won't be ashamed of myself because of things in the past that I did not do. I am in the place that I am now, and it is from here that I make decisions. Appeals to the ugliness of the past only entrench us in it. We must move on.”

“You speak as if you aren't a part of the world you live in.”

“I find that to think like that is the only way to appreciate the potential of our lives. It is incredibly easy to be bogged down by the terrestrial, and these burdens cloud our eyes and minds to the extreme privilege of our existence. It sickens me to read of the horror and fighting, to see people sleeping on concrete, to think of orphans. So I cling to the possibility of a world free of these ills.”

“That's incredibly irresponsible. This is the world we have, and you cannot treat it like a flippant dream. People's lives, rights, and dignity are constantly at stake.”

“Have you ever heard of Hugh Everett?”

“No I haven't.”

“He was an incredibly smart man, who produced one of the most fruitful and promising theories of modern science: the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.”

“What is quantum mechanics?”

“And he claims to be educated! Quantum mechanics deals with the behaviour of microscopic particles, the literal building blocks of our universe. Early 20th century physicists discovered that these devilish particles don't reside in a single, definite location until they are observed; there is uncertainty inherent in the fabric of our world. One of the main issues with this field is the role of observation. Many leading quantum physicists propagated the accepted solution to how the murky quantum world gives way to our fluid yet concrete reality, namely that human consciousness plays a special, metaphysical role in the transaction, anchoring these stubborn particles to the universe. We cause God's dice to settle. Everett's theory takes controversial opposition to this doctrine. He claims that the uncertainty we experience is a product of our inhabiting one of an infinitude of worlds, that are the product of the possibilities of the outcomes of events. For Everett, uncertainty evaporates because everything that can occur occurs in one of these worlds, and we experience our world as probabilistic and uncertain because we only inhabit one of them, and are in ignorance of the totality of these 'many worlds'.”

“So you push aside your responsibilities based on the musings of a multiverse truther!”

“The model solves many outstanding issues in quantum theory. But the theory is not on trial here today, as it unfortunately has been elsewhere. I only raise it here so that you may consider the glory of our world, flaws et al., and its fragile state. Our universe could have been one of those that collapsed upon itself immediately upon inception. Or one of the matter-less stillborns that populate the many worlds. Be grateful for the persistence of the arena. Our sun could have burned, overzealous and premature, to an early and spectacular supernova. Be grateful for the source of all energy, life's flint. Our planet could have drawn the fate of Venus, furnace-blasted corpse of the neighbourhood, or Mars, aridity manifest down the road. Be grateful for our humble rock. It could have remained so, void of action and life. Be grateful for breath, movement, sight and company, for they are immense opportunities, scarcely bequeathed. That we can be here to facilitate charity is incredible, and I fear the trend of goodwill being used to drive us apart. The intolerance of the slightest selfishness, or any perceived lack of care for the less fortunate, in a species sculpted by ultimate biological self-preservation can only end in destruction, which is why I felt I had to step in front of the social justice train. Of course I feel guilty for supporting that man, but I believe it was the right decision.”

“How will you feel when Muslims are beaten in the streets? Or families torn apart and deported. Or when our cultural mosaic is shattered by those violent and fearful of the future?”

“I will feel sad that, despite the eminence of our world, at its depths, it still mirrors hell.”

Fidgeting to relieve some the pressure build-up in the muscles of his lower back, the waiter found room to break his peace. “The Mustafa's Meatball Sandwich is always a hit, but if you are still interested in a pasta, one of my favourites is the squash linguine.”

“The linguine then. With some Italian wedding soup on the side.”

“Excellent choice sir. I'll be right back with your soup.” The waiter strode away, untying his crimson apron and carefully placing his notepad on a table he passed. There was no soup left, so now was as good a time as any for a career move. Anything to be free of the pedantry of political discourse. The waiter gave Mustafa a brief nod, buoyed by the authority of the freed man. “Fuck this place,” he thought, utterly correct.

“So where do we go from here? If there are all these universes out there, hosting all possibilities, and if suffering is possible, doesn't that mean that it is inevitable in at least a select few?” The youth's stomach was at this point being quite curt with him.

“Seems like it yes. But if there is something for us to cling to, it's that suffering requires cognizance. And the cognizant cognize primarily to solve problems. I see suffering as a sort of tax on the fact that we are able to enjoy life. For most beings, life is no means to an end. It is pure duration, often cut short by cruel nature. We have symphonies, friendship, the chance to grab a woman or man by the waist and kiss them. Indian food, humour, and heart transplants. Holiday feasts, drunken goodbyes, and sweet, sad melancholy. Appreciating these is the catalyst to end suffering. Our issue is that we binge, and it hollows us out like rotten canoes.”

“You know, you aren't nearly as ignorant as I expected you to be.”