We made the monster

   So do this: stand in front of the mirror, stark naked, and just stare. What is your reaction? What thought are gliding through your brain right now? Are you really looking or not? Well, this is a simple test to check you are a person of the twentieth or twenty-first century. If you are, you will instantly find something that you don’t like, something that feels “off” somehow. Is it your waist, your ass or your genitalia? Is it your chest, your face even? Not really important.

 If you can’t find something to change, if you just love everything you see, sir or lady, you are lying. Or worse, you are lying to yourself so hard you don’t even recognize truth anymore. And why do I say this? Because we all know this world we live in today has made us hate each other and has crossed the border to make us hate ourselves.

 But what is the point of that you say? Well, easy. If we hate how we look, we will spend thousands of dollars trying to look different, to be desirable. And society is kind enough to tell us what to do in each case: maybe the gym, maybe a full makeover, buying new clothes and maybe even change ourselves physically with the help of a doctor or some other “expert”. All those things will help us but, once we achieve what we were looking for, we will realize this new state of being is not good enough.

 Why? Because we can always be taller, skinnier, bigger, softer… Better, in the eyes of the almighty society that is nothing more than a bunch of people that want our money and our minds. Once we concede, once we say, “Yes” at least one time, we have already lost. We lose our ability to see what’s good or bad, what’s true and what’s false. We just don’t even care anymore because we have entered the social convention known, as the “community” where everyone HAS to want the same thing and everyone has to get it exactly the same way.

 Imagination is slowly dying, more and more, each day more and more pale and pathetic. Because we don’t need her anymore. We have decided that copies are better than an original; we have decided that one good way is better than many great ways. Today, being different is only taken into account when it happens to be a fashion statement, a way of saying you’re “crazy” or “unique”, when truly you’re just the simplest one of the whole bunch.

 Real creative people live like rats, hiding in the dark, trying to live by. They just can’t stand the world and sometimes leave it but others decide to stay on as a challenge to everything that exists. They make their own rules and they are left alone, because no one will really hear or see them. They don’t matter anymore and they use that to their advantage. When no one looks at you, you are suddenly free to experiment more and more, even if that new acquired knowledge is only going to be shared with a handful of other “freaks”.

 Still, the world is ruled by those who think that they are making a difference but, deep down, they know their actions are not important enough to matter in the grand scheme of things. Not that they are bad or evil. No, they are just ignorant and many of them are ignorant very willingly. They prefer this life because the less they know; the more comfortable they are with others. Who cares about the grandiosity of the universe when your boyfriend has a big dick or your girlfriend is a submissive person?

 And that’s the truth. That’s what we all think about because, at the end of the day, even the ones that still use their imagination are contaminated with the filth of a world that hates us for who we are but that need us to keep moving, to keep gaining wealth and power. How many times an artist has succumbed to the stronger will of money? It’s a very popular saying: “artists have to eat too”. And it’s true.

 It’s of the monkey act on the streets: you have to dance and clap and act like an idiot to be noticed, to be seen by the world and to be recognized, with money or food. If it was a world made by intellect, that wouldn’t be a problem at all because everyone would share and no one would starve. But we do not live in such a world. We live in one were there has to be someone on top and someone underneath him. Someone powerful and someone powerless. If that balance fails, they know things will go to chaos because we are simply not smart.

 Beauty is not a personal concept anymore and anyone that thinks that is gravely mislead. No, beauty has been modeled by society for a long time and what each individual thinks of it is highly unimportant. If beauty standards say fat is ugly, it will not matter how many fat actresses or fat models parade around the world. The concept of beauty will not change and fat girls will still feel awful looking at the mirror and living as who they are.

 Even if we know that the chubby guy in the bus is kind of cute, that doesn’t change anything. He’s still ugly to the eyes of society, meaning that we can be accepting but only if we decide doing that will be to our advantage. Or way do you think some societies have begun to embrace homosexual people? It’s not because they have realized they are also humans, but because they can be used as a fashion accessory. That was the way the gay man made it into open society: by being a mascot.

 Offensive, you think? Untrue? Just take a look. On every single society the example of a gay man is the man in the salon doing hair. What’s he like? He’s delicate, very effeminate, girly in every aspect and often skinny. That was the first gay man that got into society and, as it performed a role in it, it was welcomed but not with open arms but with hostility. Eventually he became a pet for the women that wanted to be beautiful, so they became tools to achieve what society wanted. They had a use, they could be used.

 And that’s is the truth behind the so-called acceptance of minorities. It’s not acceptance but tolerance, they let us be there with them, but they always point out how different we truly are. That’s society. Not a beautiful place where everyone is equal and we all hold hands singing. Society is just a place, a gathering of people that have roles to perform. It’s not about freedom or rights; it’s about how useful we can be to those that are powerful.

 Of course, that cannot be used to promote anarchy. Why? Because anarchy is the rule of the people and people are ignorant and stupid. If people, “real people” ruled, the world would be in an even worse state. Who rule us are rats, that’s true. But they are people who wait, whose power has taught them to be patient, to play the game slowly and to put everything on its place. In other words, we kind of need the powerful ones, because that power has taught them how to handle things.

 Power for all? Impossible. Give power to someone that has never had it and see what happens: chaos and even less freedom and truth. People cannot be trusted. And when I say that, I mean every single person in the world. Good or bad, that doesn’t exists. People are just that. They are capable of anything and nothing, at the same time and that’s why, when they are being oppressed, their own “communities” fail to act. They just parade around, faking an interest that disappears into the oblivion shortly afterwards.

 And still, when we take off our clothes, we still look exactly the same in front of the mirror. Even with all those minor biological differences, we are all the same. Even the most powerful is as likely to die as the weakest of the human beings. Even the richest woman can still be capable of carrying a child and even the weakest man can still infuse life into the world.

 Yes, we are equal but only in nature. There, we are all truly a group, a family. But we are not nature anymore, except for our birth and our death. Everything between those two moments has been created by the society, which is sadly made of people like us that have had a glimpse of power and that have decided that that fat woman is ugly, that guy with a small penis is worthless and that child that has dark skin will be a danger just because.

 We have created the monster that haunts us every day and now we are incapable to handle it. And that is, partly, because we don’t really want to handle it, we don’t want it to calm down or to be more forgiving. We want him to be what we are afraid to be openly: brutal and utterly human.

Why, Cynthia? Why?

Yeah, you could call her that. She was a "gym freak", no doubt about it. Cynthia would expend several hours a day in the gym, exercising in various ways. She did it for two hours in the morning, then she would work, at midday have a balanced meal, work again until 4 and then four more hours at the gym. She arrived home at 8:30, had a salad or something light to eat and then bed, at around 11.

And that was every single day. On weekends? Well, instead of four hours, she would spend all the afternoon there. Cynthia's favorite exercise was pilates but she also joined dancing classes, spinning, swimming, running, biking, weightlifting and various others. It was as if her energy was eternal.

Her diet was also fully controlled. Everything in small portions, no red meat and no flours based products such as bread or even desserts. To be honest, she didn't ate too many sweets. Only from time to time she would treat herself to a low fat yogurt with fruit or a sugarless dessert. She preferred eating a fruit.

Anyhow, Cynthia met Jamie and they fell in love right away. Jamie was an accountant in the same company Cynthia worked on and they had bonded right away. Whatever free time she had to spend, she would spend it with Jamie: watching movies, going shopping, traveling to nice little towns,...

Luckily enough, Jamie also liked to exercise. He had a perfect body, or so she thought. Jamie would join Cynthia on weekends at the gym, were they would run against each other or help one another doing advanced exercises.

To sum it up, everything seemed fine with Cynthia. But that was exactly it. It only seemed.

Unknown to many, she had stopped talking to her siblings, only calling her parents once a month to let them know she was fine. They would never visit as she had been clear to them she wasn't keen on surprise guests. Her brother and sister were fine not talking to her. To them, Cynthia had been too pampered by their parents; everything she wanted, she got it. And it had been like that ever since she was a baby.

They knew what she really was like and they were not really interested in having anything to do with someone that would rather spend time with others or climbing positions, instead of joining them for Christmas dinners or birthdays. Cynthia always sent her gifts to her parents, never getting there and hug or kiss them. It was as if they were distant, annoying relatives.

Her sister in particular, knew a side of her many of her "closest friends" didn't know. Cynthia was violent, easily becoming enraged if people didn't allow her to do as she wanted. Her sister had once not allowed her to use a new lipstick she had been given as a gift, so Cynthia went crazy, throwing things all around and, finally, breaking the new expensive lipstick into pieces.

None of them knew about Jamie and if they had known, it wouldn't have been too different. She had had boyfriends before, all as shallow and obsessed with beauty and power like her. Some were jocks, others more of the responsable type, but it didn't mattered. They all finally met the real Cynthia and ran away scared.

But her relationship with Jamie turned two years old and everything was as good as the first day. Soon, they married and moved in together. Her parents and siblings only knew about it through a friend, in a most uncomfortable conversation.

Her mom and dad decided to go to the city were she lived and stayed in a hotel. They contacted her from there and arranged a meeting. Long story short, Cynthia lost contact with her parents. They had allowed too much to happen, to many indulgences, too many things and details. But this, had been the last drop.

Jamie proved himself an empty human being. To Cynthia's father, he was one of the shallowest persons he had ever met. The guy was only interested in money and in looking good. That was fine, but people normally had more to go with that. No, not Jamie. He was empty, like a vase with no flowers. Cynthia's dad asked him about his hobbies, his passions but the answers were always the same.

Cynthia's mom, however, was not that bothered by the simple mindedness of her new son in law. She was more shocked to know how Cynthia appeared to have changed, a turn for the worst in her opinion. Her daughter talked about maybe adopting, as she did not wish to ruin her body for a baby. She said she had it all figured it out, including nannies, education, sports,... Her mother was horrified; not only Cynthia lived away and ashamed of them (they were meeting in a café, not even a restaurant) but her future life contemplated raising a child to be like them, or maybe even even worse. It was too much.

They left to their home were they crumbled in tears, realizing how bad they had raised their daughter, as they felt it was their fault that she had grown up to be such a shallow woman. It wasn't the gym thing or even the diets. It was the fact that she was obsessed to be perfect, not accepting who she really was. She never discussed her past with people that met her and decided not to have friends, rather acquaintances. She only trusted herself in order to make her life perfect by buying and doing and pretending. And if it wasn't, she had no problem pretending.

Cynthia never knew she had nephews, from both of her siblings. She never knew her parents had won a trip to Europe or that the home were she had grew up had been destroyed by a massive flooding. And all that happened in only ten years, during which she had no contact with her relatives.

Many hoped, without telling others, that she would someday change as having children changed people, as did marriage. Well, she divorced Jamie, who tried to get custody of the child they had adopted, with no success. He was an idiot but he proved to have a heart. Cynthia did not have one. The divorce, the life of her child, they did not change her. She was as focused and cold, as always.

Maybe that is why the kid, a girl called Camilla, ran away from home at age 15. She escaped with the help of a friend and Cynthia's rage was more than it had ever been. But that was it: no guilt, no sadness, no pain. Only rage.

Camilla, after a long search, got her grandparents address and visited them. They were seniors now and she cried as she felt time had been stolen from her. Her grandma kissed and hugged her and cried with her.

They sent an email to Cynthia, where Camilla confessed she would rather stay with her grandparents than with her. That was the only time Cynthia shed a tear. The following day, she sent all of Camilla's belongings the her parents house and forgot about her. She then increased her exercise hours, becoming more and more trapped in herself until, one day, she fainted on a treadmill and died.