death is just a number

less is more

i like charts, like converting numbers into pictures. i’m a visual learner. the internet is great to alleviate my curiosity. i ask: “how many civilians have died.” to compare the morality of war. as if there were rules anymore. have you watched those videos recently? they are like the movies. it’s fun to watch a building crumble, as long as you can turn the screen off. as long as it was part of the imagination. some people let their picture reels infect reality. some of them are in charge of armies. we all convinced them of their power, given decisions of us billions, to billionaires. even the communists have them now. i thought they weren’t allowed to invest in human dividends. wrong again, gotta ingest more information.

we call these people leaders. i think they are good at it. the numbers say they are leading us to collapse. haven’t they always? all the stories talk about the lesser gathering together to hold each other up. i guess… at least the rich have the most to lose. i googled: “who would suffer most from an economic collapse.” it made me sad. how is every event in this system a disadvantage for the disadvantaged? the poorest will suffer worst from destroying this behemoth. they need it most. and they need it most to be rebuilt. at least we are creating more rubble to be reconstructed. i guess a lot of unimportant humans have to die for the important ones to notice. i thought we were only six friends separated from knowing the oppressed. maybe i didn’t make the right friends. none of mine have died yet. the numbers weren’t so good at predicting that. the charts are still fun, i can pick and choose which parts i fit in. oh! that’s the reason. final answers are relieving. it was even color coded. made my vision believe the answer i wanted. these days, what I want is easy to find. and finding is equivalent too: truth.

the numbers help me feel a little less uncertain. just a little, for a moment. then my mind wakes up again. what would that number mean if it was me? many would care. well… many in my world. in the world of numbers one is an anomaly. i’d have to die a million times for the world to consider it an atrocity. but, even then, everyone would move on. it would be another slice to present evidence: here’s another opinion. we don’t have enough of those, i think. i think that’s why we keep creating more, more supposition. juxtapose the correct corresponding data to support an idea teetering on disinformation. it’s easy to download opinion today. that way, you don’t have to make your own. the scary thing is, though, that opinion could be intentionally trying to convince you of their encouraging collusion. even trusted beings can be conflated into conspiracy. at least they had some numbers this time, to believe in. seeing is believing, they say. somehow we still don’t believe it could happen to us.

we are protected

by ignorance.