Mark Morford on. . . Everything

Mark Morford:

The real truth is, we are not immune to those very things we were essentially convinced we were immune from. It's the lesson we try to avoid at all costs: the more you think you can control even a fraction of the system and the more you try to block out at least a few of the potential calamities, the more the system reveals that it's no system at all, and is actually a slapdash madhouse tinderbox of careening laws and makeshift rules and barely controlled chaos no one really understands. Neat!

No matter. We do it anyway. We carefully set up all these mechanisms, all these banking systems and savings plans and financial strategies, all these cartoonish religious beliefs and social contracts and ridiculous tribal allegiances, all to give us the illusion of stability, the false sense of security and place. How cute we are.

And we grip these illusions more and more tightly, absolutely refusing to believe what we already know, deep down: that when you finally open up your hand, there's actually nothing there. Ain't it grand?