ANGST FILES
April 18, 2003
Take This, You'll Sleep Better
Acch! This dreaded wakefulness is almost undendurable. I long to be like the slumbering ones. To go back to sleep and let this all be a dream. If only I could. And there are so many ways to do it, to deaden your senses and go into a state of hypnosis, or hibernation. Like Rip Van Winkle I could wake in 100 years, and would the world even be here? What would be left?The television beckons. Go to sleep. Everything will be okay. Life is but a dream. Don't pay attention to the ones who are screaming. Some people always have to find something wrong. There is nothing wrong. As Tom Wolfe said in the 1970s, America is in a happiness explosion. It's the best of all possible worlds. As our well-paid senators love to tell us, this is the greatest civilization in the history of the world.
So a few people die, a few are torn limb from limb, are burned to death while their children watch. It's only a tiny minority. It's a small price to pay for the happiness of so many. Soon, the ones who go along will all have their own SUVs, and cell phones. Go to sleep.