It's just a ride

I was watching some video clips of Bill Hicks performances a couple days ago to pass the time. I first learned of Bill Hicks from the_bone via the interests in his profile, but I hadn't seen any of his performances until now. I came across one that was pretty cool (in a serious way more than in a funny way). So I want to share it here. You can go watch Bill Hicks say it himself if you want to. But here is my transcription of the monologue:

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All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. We are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death. Life is a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves.

The world is like a ride at an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it, you think it's real, 'cause that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down and around and around. It has thrills and chills and its very brightly colored and its very loud. And it's fun, for a while. But some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question, "is this real? Or is this a ride?" And other people have remembered and they come back to us. They say, "hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever. Because - this is just a ride."

And we...kill those people. "Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This has to be real."

It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try to tell us that, and let the demons run amuck. But it doesn't matter because - it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money - a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door and buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.

He then goes on to say that we can solve all the problems in the world by redirecting all of the money spent on weapons and departments of "defense" to feed, clothe, and educate every single human on the planet, none excepted, and could do so many times over with that money. Then we could go on to explore space in peace. Wow. It was cool until he said that shit. Talk about setting up conditions for a population explosion. (although, In the Wake has suggested that its not overpopulation that is the cause of most of the environmental crisis but rather the overconsumption of resources by the wealthy West.) I guess that's why we'd need to be exploring space - to ship excess people off the planet to start destroying other planets. I'm glad we no longer have the energy resources to do so. Otherwise, the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy would have to be revised - earth could no longer be considered "mostly harmless."

Anyway, I just thought the first part of the monologue was pretty rad.

Tags:

• civilzation
• community