Carpe Diem

One of my LJ Friends who shares space with me both here and on FB posted a video of how there are people using kittens as bait to catch marlins and sharks. They put the hook through the loose skin on the kitty’s necks and throw them in the water. The animals then paddle… as all mammals instinctively do. The paddling attracts the fish. I think it said they are doing this off the coast of Argentina, but that it is mostly Americans doing it. I may not have the details just right. I found the whole thing so horrifying that I could not bring myself to turn on the sound or watch the whole thing. Here is what I came away with:





There is a terrible, horrible, pathological sickness in the world right now. Its symptoms present themselves as a ME ME ME I WANT I WANT I WANT overarching behavior where people become just black holes of consumerism. With those guys fishing in Argentina, it’s obvious. Clearly, if they have the money to go deep sea fishing in another country, they are not doing it to feed their families. Clearly, that is not their need. I can only assume that their need is to feel important… powerful. Why else would a person spend all of that money to go to another country and put hooks into kittens so that the defenseless creatures can attract sharks while trying not to drown? What do they get out of it? They can then show their friends how big and powerful they are because they killed a big, dangerous fish!



This is no different than businessmen who get into trouble because they party too much and then have to flee the country, leaving their employees without paychecks. A CEO who makes millions of dollars a year but still feels that he has to commit fraud to increase his income! That is no different from a hoarding disorder. How many millions of dollars does one person need to make? It is not good business, it is a sickness… no different than alcoholism or drug addiction… no different than Americans going to Thailand to buy child prostitutes… and it is KILLING THE PLANET!



Don’t get me wrong… I am not saying that making money is bad. Goddess knows, I would like a chance to do that myself. But, what I am saying is that people have just gotten nuts. The thing that separates an alcoholic from someone that just enjoys alcohol is that the alcoholic puts the need to consume alcohol before everything else… before their family, before their job, before their health. And, because humans are so interdependent on one another, the affects of addiction do not just affect the addict… addiction has devastating affects on everyone around the addict as well.



So, this is what is on my mind today. I feel like I have a choice.



Well, ok… my choice would be to go back to my house on the Lake, turn off the TV, play the Sims… ignore everything else. That is really what I want to do. REALLY! But, the gods aren’t going to let me do that. So I guess the choice available to me is I can either become a part of the solution, or I can become a part of the problem.