....shortly thereafter I discovered tobacco, alcohol and turned into a jelly fish

A Da Crow Production

I believe that we have a cultural obsession with things getting better. Corporate profits MUST rise. Gross domestic product (whatever the hell that is) MUST go up. Teenage pregnancies, smoking related deaths, the deficit and unemployment numbers MUST go down. Well, clearly no one else wants to ask the question, so I will. Why? Why MUST life constantly improve?

When did we become so burdened with this need for things to always get better? I'm pretty sure that if we go back in time far enough we'll find that our ancestors didn't stress over it. Life was good, then it was bad, then it was the same, then it got good again, etc. For millions of years, things rarely got great and often got horrible. Which is why I believe our relentless drive to improve on the status quo is a fairly recent occurrence. Furthermore, I pinpoint its origin with Darwin's Theory of Evolution, which I believe mistakenly implies that it's in the nature of nature to "get better." We all know the deal, amino acids improve to amoebas, which improve to jelly fish, blah, blah, blah, homo sapiens (assuming evolution ends with us, which it doesn't). But what about this progression implies better? I'll grant you that evolution creates complexity, but better??

Isn't that really just the snobbery of the complex talking? Speaking from personal experience, I have a memory of being twelve years old, standing and watching nervously while my father looked over my report card. After a bit of frowning, he took off his glasses, looked down at me and said, "You MUST do better." Boy, I showed him. Not only did my grades not improve, shortly thereafter I discovered tobacco, alcohol and turned into a jelly fish. As a dear friend of mine likes to say, "God made us perfect and SHE never changed her mind."

The Heart

A Da Crow Production

Let's talk about the human heart - the organ from whence love comes. While cardiologists might see it as just a simple pumping mechanism, common wisdom knows better. The brain does not love. The lungs do not love. The penis makes a lot of noise about love, but after intercourse its intentions are fairly obvious.

In the end, we all know the truth. We've all experienced the truth. That swelling feeling in the chest is the universal sensation we have when the heart is expressing love. Conversely, that sinking feeling in the chest is the universal sensation we have when our love is not reciprocated. It is then that the heart is "broken." We are literally "heartsick" until we learn that our ex-lover was inexplicably taken hostage by Somali pirates while dining at a neighborhood mamak stall.

 News we find "heartening."