You Are Not Worth It

All America's crimes in the name of security stem from the belief that our lives are very, very important and must be protected at all costs. This is a narcissistic delusion. Our lives are important, but sometimes bad things are going to happen and some of us are going to die, and this is not a shocking affront to the natural order, it's an inevitability that mature human beings learn to accept.



When you go camping, you accept the possibility that you could fall off a cliff or be eaten by a bear. You don't kill all the bears and blast down all the cliffs in order to guarantee your safety. You take reasonable precautions and then you go out and hope for the best, because although you enjoy your life, you know it's not that important. It's not worth flattening the world.



But America is obsessed with safety. We insist that no one must ever die, and we trample over our principals in an absurd attempt to ensure it. If we could relax our grip on this planet and accept that being here is a privilege that can be revoked at any time, if we could let go of the notion that preserving life, no matter how sorry the state of it becomes, is the great mission of society that trumps all other concerns, then maybe the madness of doing bad things to prevent bad things could finally end.