Is this the life?

 Walking down an abandoned street I imagined the zombie apocalypse that I would have preferred: bloodthirsty, brainhungry, mindless corpses driven only by the base instinct to feed. Down every street another scene of desolation where the desperate had made their last, doomed stand against the inevitable. Cries for help go unanswered in the distance. It's not a romantic idea really. Too much of the above could apply to our current world. The lack of humanity and resources gathered greedily by the few at the expense of the many could describe reality or the zombie apocalypse. But there is some part of me that still wishes to escape from the strangling hold of social media, the constant demands of modern life. The draining, endless bullshit that you see when you aren't afraid to really look and use empathy rather than tribalism to imagine a better world. How much simpler would it be to have a common, irrefutable enemy that cannot be ignored or defended. A zombie will pursue you and kill you directly, rather than death from a thousand cuts, from corruption, from media manipulation. 

    I'm not suggesting all the death and destruction, the ending of life as we know it is the way forward. What I am suggesting is that life as we know it is not working for most people and the worst thing is that a lot of people don't want to accept that or actively work for it. 

    So here I am on an empty street, thinking that instead of worrying about what the government are going to do next I just want to have simple problems that I can work on. Kill the zombies, find the food, help people. Do I really want that? Of course not. What makes me feel this way is how much I don't want THIS. I mean I could go and live in the woods somewhere, but I'd probably need a permit and be liable for shack tax or something. Or the wood would be redeveloped into 'affordable' housing around me.

    Don't get me wrong, I indulge in modern life. I consume and contribute to the system that perpetuates my misery...but it's hard not to when that is all you know. When everyone else does.

    So I escape into worlds where things have gone horribly wrong and feel that at least I would have some power over my own destiny. I might miss ordering pizza and watching YouTube but...who am I kidding, I really love those things.

    Change is hard, but more people need to realise that we are being kept in a system that is designed to keep us occupied while everything around us is moved into private hands. We consume endless unnecessary junk while the real wealth is kept from us. I'm no conspiracy theorist, I just realise that my inability to buy property is by design. House prices being out of reach for most is by design. It is unlikely to improve.

    What does all this mean, really? It is worth stopping and looking, REALLY looking at the world. Not one with borders that is us vs them, but one where we try and make things work well for all people. We don't want to do well at the expense of others, but alongside others. 

All of that is harder than just singing songs about wishing that there were zombies though.