Earth—the last of the garbage bins the Mexican, Indian and Filipino maids cannot be fired for not cleaning. I doubt there is a disinfectant appropriate enough for such a mess but who needs solutions when the greatest success of evolution itself has two arms, two legs, a complex brain and no longer hang from trees and get eaten by other wild animals—except when they go camping—can bicker about exactly which one of them gets to be the more dominating narcissist of all?
I consider myself to be a moderately great ape because I have functions like conscience, intelligence and imagination to help me navigate my life in a way other creatures seemingly cannot. I keep to my needs and not struggle needlessly for privilege and world domination. Many will find this a mutually agreeable way of life. And many other hundreds—thousands—billions—will say “Oh! But there’s more to life!”—like the path to ‘salvation’, ‘enlightenment’ and ‘seventy-two virgins’. They will prowl the streets with papers, books and pamphlets that ‘educate’ you about how delusions are the only one true way of living and anything else will have your soul burning in flames so eternal you just keep burning without ever dying! And there it was—an insidious mental illness—creeping its paws all around us!
Great Civilizations were formed with the gratitude to life and then shattered and obliterated in the name of obsessive delusions and compulsions of Man. Even today, if they cannot have their way—they’ll set my soul free with a machete, bomb or bullet. Dare my voice have contempt, objection or opposition—they’ll set my soul free then too. I’m told my place is where there is no voice or movement. I always thought the grave was for the dead but with my gender, being a woman, apparently it’s all the same. Why? Because I’m so precious and honour dwells between my legs and when opinions sprout from my greatness all that honour comes tumbling down like bronze-aged warriors battling it out under a blazing sun—there will be blood—lots of it!
We are so great and the glory of our greatness amounts to that of a successful passing of constipation. We are socially so under-developed—our ability to be so vehemently uncompromising puts us at the bottom of anything so great. The vast majority of us enjoy being segregated and only weep and wail about discrimination when it’s convenient. We cater to religion, nationalism and most importantly, tribalism—all that which discriminates—paving ways for psychopaths to rule our democracy and justice.
Where exactly is our greatness? Is our ability to build ‘wonders’ with the blood of slaves great? Is our ability to create medicine and technology and spin it for capitalism great? Is our ability to indoctrinate and then hold the tools of learning in unreachable places great? Is our ability to oppress and violate those we coexist with great? Labels can be nice or unkind, scientifically and otherwise. But logically, if the labels don’t fit—it’s dangerously misleading to tag ourselves as such. Our greatness is a testament to exactly how un-great we humans truly are. We are uncivilized by nature yet functional enough to learn and become civilized—that, however, is one lesson in life we collectively refuse to participate in.
Aki Muthali is a freelance writer, who's a feminist. Born and raised in Sri Lanka, she currently lives in Canada. She’s also an illustrator and a painter. Follow her on Twitter