Unfinished paper

[Forty]

We watched Fight Club and had to write a paper over it, so I chose to do this instead of the standard analytical crap about a film I've seen 500 times.

 

 

 

 

 

Drink it up. Drink up the wine being thrust at you from all directions. You stumble along, mouth agape, inhaling all the earthy scents of the liquor that slowly numbs you. You are just another addict, another drunkard for the suits to feed, another slave to the white collar. You are overcome with fantasies of stardom and wealth, of meeting your favorite celebrity and sharing a broo-hah over tea in Beverly. All your wildest dreams could come true with a simple twelve-step program.

 

All of you are sheep. Nothing drives you but material delusions and practical solutions to modern living. Your excessive waste and exorbitant lifestyles mask the sad depression hiding behind every golden egg. Our industries obsess and make market of the coveted possessions of our idols- the superstars. They intoxicate you with shiny objects and promises of happiness with every purchase. You succumb to the pressure of societal rank and smother yourselves with identical fashions and overpriced powders, hoping to be mistaken for one of People’s 50 Most Beautiful. There are pretentious magazines that assail you with trendy merchandise and gossip about others’ private lives, made spectacular because they act in films and on television. The board of directors capitalizes on your unfulfilling lives by teasing you with propositions of a better one. You hook bait like a starved herring.

 

In a world getting away from us, we the average men and women are left to tug the rope while the privileged reap the benefits of our efforts. We look to them for guidance, trust them with our honesty, and they sh*t on us to save themselves. It is a sad degradation that the people keeping society on its feet are the same ones being left behind. Yet it has always been this way. We are perpetually locked into a caste system and no evolution of thought can free us.

 

The longer the corporate bosses dominate our people, the more deeply rooted their influence over our lives will be. They are not our people. They are the slave drivers. The responsibility for the current state of our existence falls squarely on our shoulders. It is our fault for letting it reach this level. It is then our responsibility to bring the legs out from under the machine. Never should the beast be allowed to rebel against its creator, because we are indeed the engineers of this monster.

 

 

 

*to be continued*

 

 

 

I need to write another two pages or so, this is just the beginning. Wanted to see if anyone liked where it was going.

[Reactor.]

It's accurate. It's funny how when you read that, you realise that you've known it all for ages, and that you just needed a reminder. Well, if you have more issues to put into the paper then I'd definitely continue the way you're going. A lot of what you wrote could be expanded upon to fill up the pages but that's really not necessary as long as you've got more ideas to write about.

 

This is only nitpicking but this part:

 

 

It is our fault for letting it reach this level. It is then our responsibility to bring the legs out from under the machine. Never should the beast be allowed to rebel against its creator, because we are indeed the engineers of this monster.

The 'because' part doesn't fit right where it is. It's saying: 'it's our fault, we've got to bring the legs out from under the machine, the reason for this is because the beast shouldn't rebel against its creator, because we created it'.

 

How do you like the sound of:

 

 

It is our fault for letting it reach this level.  Never should the beast be allowed to rebel against its creator.  It is our responsibility to bring the legs out from under the machine, because we are indeed the engineers of this monster.

'It's our fault, the beast shouldn't be allowed to rebel, so we've got to bring the legs out from under the machine, because we built it'. It makes more sense to me that way. Of course it's not my writing, but there you go anyway.

[Forty]

I like the sound of that better, and thanks for replying. 40 views and not a single reply is discouraging.

[Reactor.]

Hey cool, glad you like it. It's a shame how little attention the place gets. I guess people just don't want to go to the effort of reading a lot. Make sure your post the full thing when it's finished. Edited April 27, 2005 by Rector

[Forty]

I will.

 

Well it's sad that other writing doesn't get any attention. People post GTA-related stories and sometimes get multiple pages worth of discussion, but poetry and other writing such as this doesn't get much of a response at all.

[Reactor.]

Yeah. I'm all for crime stories, but too many of them center around a character doing jobs for organised crime in here. Which doesn't mean they're not good, they're just not my thing. I like seeing something different.

[Iminicus]

I must apologizes 40, I have read it several times but never left a reply because I didn't know what to say.

 

I, after 3 readings, must say I enjoyed it. The beginning real draws you into the action. It is also short but sweet. You don't hold back and let the reader aware of what might happen. The setting is excellent and accentuates what you are trying to protray. I haven't read any of your other work, but judging by this is looks to be like they are good works.

 

Keep it up and will look forward to future and past works of yours.

[Le Machin]

I love this. Well written and purposeful.

 

Stuff like MTV Cribs or that reality show about Jessica Simpson nauseate me because they glorify celebrities, as if they are something greater than we are by the simple "virtue" of being rich and famous. They entertain us but are also intruments of control; they provide the "dream" while neo-liberal capitalist government chains us to work and encourages us to live atomized lives, preventing the vast majority of us from ever achieving their status.

 

 

We look to them for guidance, trust them with our honesty, and they sh*t on us to save themselves..

 

I'm not sure if this is appropriate, or if it even makes sense. Trust them with our honesty? Do you mean that our honesty leads us to trust them (which the sentence, as is, doesn't say), or that we entrust our honesty to them (which I don't think is possible)? And how are they saving themselves by "sh*tting on us"? By creating this class system and an unsustainable society, aren't the privileged contributing to the collapse of the mechanisms that keep them in power?

 

Then you follow up with...

 

 

It is a sad degradation that the people keeping society on its feet are the same ones being left behind. Yet it has always been this way. We are perpetually locked into a caste system and no evolution of thought can free us

 

This kicks ass. But do you really think no evolution of thought can free us? What about thought like yours, like the people at Adbusters magazine? What about the people who agree with you (and I'm sure there are many more)?

 

With work, this essay ought to be sent in to Adbusters' or Crimethinc (www.crimethinc.com) or something.

 

By the way, the play Cinderella Waltz by Don Nigro touches on a few of the ideas here--thought traps, the worship of the rich, the illusions people are under--if you're interested in that kind of thing, you should try and look it up. It's distributed by Samuel French Inc.

[Iminicus]

40, you need to draw some conclusion to this. I think it has to be finished but not after another 20 pages. Finish it within 2- 3 paragraphs, but keep the original flow of the beginning to finish it. A suggestion on finishing it.

 

Restate the beginning but drop the whole realization into it. Like the end of Fight Club.