The Fake Sound of Progress

Change is a myth, the belief that the world is headed in any direction at all is a false one. We seem almost destined to repeat our mistakes, despite the pretension that we have somehow learned from the past... Apathy is as widespread as it has ever been. No one cares about anything that has happened outside of their own experience, let alone if it was thousands of years ago... with technology these days, those people might as well have not existed. We often fail to learn from our own experience, occasionaly as the result of an almost childlike idealism and faith in the belief that people can change... For example, in unrequited love... if a romantic interest doesn't immediately take to you, how often do we hope against hope that they will eventually come around, and see us for the sterling knights and stunning maidens that we all already know ourselves to be. How many people remain trapped in unfulfilling and parasitic relationships with the tenacious hope 'one day he/she will change...' I bring this up, of course, because I am seeing it happen once again to one of my long time friends. He has been through this exact situation already and seen it blow up in his face several times, dragging us all through a most unpleasent experience. At least back then, he actually got to date the girl... Rather than disgrace the internet with yet another scandalous story, I will simply mention that he has found himself a new girl to take advantage of him. He is by all accounts a complete slave to her, consuming lavish amounts of time and money to fulfill her every wish, and in return, he is denied the perogative of dating her (she really needs him as a friend right now) and occasionally experiences some dramatically irratic behaviour (e.g. "I never want to see you again!") They keep 'breaking up,' only to eventually get back together... Our friendship has already been irrevocably altered when I 'turned against her' after the first time she left him high and dry. Several misadventures later, they are back at it again. At first, wary of our (his roomates')collective derision, they kept it hidden. Today, things are back out in the open. Things don't always change... but why does it have to be the things that hold us back that we are incapable of escaping?

As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. -Proverbs 26:11