What are some functional responses to my concerns? (Or how do I learn to stop worrying and love the bomb?) Or maybe this is a question about vocation.

If you know my Fluther trail, you know that I am passionate about obsessed with stories and issues related to political and economic oppression on a globalized scale. These run along the lines of war for oil, economic imperialism (imposing debts on third world nations), and the steamrolling of humanity in the name of national security or whatever. While a lot of my rancor is the result of viewing the world through a relatively new and and relatively poisonous (i.e. conspiracy nut job) set of lenses, my perceptions and predispositions are remarkably consistent with ones that I had 10 years ago (long before I had any idea of conspiracies) and even 15 years ago when I was first exposed to the inequitable relationship between the first and the third world. Hell, I was even similarly upset after reading The Outsiders almost 25 years ago. This is all to say that I’ve ruminated on and have been significantly troubled by these issues for years. And it affects me on a very personal and immediate level—akin to the idea that by buying gas, for example, I am contributing to the machine that has killed a million Iraqis. I’ve never bought a diamond, but I wouldn’t be able to without thinking I would be rewarding a cabal that has more or less enslaved populations by lobbying for taxes that forced subsistence farmers into industrial labor (not to mention pillaging their natural resources). The violence that is done every day in the name of profit and power makes me sick, as does the collective ignorance (my perception) that allows us to demonize and dehumanize others as “enemies” or exploit them. And, my relatively recent understanding (or my relatively recent perception) that this is and has been done quite purposefully and methodically, while comforting in the sense that at least the cause of “the world’s problems” is less of a mystery, makes taking refuge in thoughts or actions that are hopeful or idealistic really difficult (and makes embracing absurdity and nihilism rather easy.) So after all this time, I still don’t know how to move on and am so far unwilling to let go until this unsolvable problem is solved and that continues to make participating in my own life (and a life decorated with modern conventions) rather difficult.

There is a part of me that now recognizes these evils as sort of the byproduct of a modern incarnation of tribalism, and that despite our sloganeering inspired by the Enlightenment and democracy and freedom, we still live in a tribal world. That if it wasn’t us who benefitted from the idea that “the meek shall inherit the earth but not the mineral rights,” some other power would come along and take from us. If I hadn’t been so brainwashed (like we all are) about our ideals of democracy, meritocracy and freedom, etc. I would probably have an easier time accepting this. But I’m still getting over the feeling of being conned by the Big Lie. Or maybe I need to embrace the idea that the material cost of manifesting and preserving democracy (or its semblance or facade) and all those other ideals on this otherwise brutal planet is 80% of the world’s resources and the requisite collateral damage imposed on everyone else.

I feel like I need to manifest a different response other than being stuck. The two most plausible options seem to be: a) to basically commit to fucking the system and go off the grid both in a literal and metaphoric sense, or b) somehow give up this mess of thought and embrace capitalist amorality for all its worth.

So my question is what else can I do? What are other possible responses or even partial responses? If this is who I am, what vocation or career or way of functionally navigating in the world might fit me?

If you care to indulge me, I will elaborate further, but you don’t need to read further to get the gist of my question. Thank you for getting this far and for your response.

If there is such a thing as hardwiring, I would suppose that I am hardwired this way. One might call it a passion or inkling of a vocation if only it were a more legitimate or conventional expression of a career or profession. Obviously, there are people who make a living as purveyors of this kind of information, but their impact, I think, rarely moves beyond reinforcing the beliefs of the minority who perceive these issues as problems and “consume” the information like any other media product (meanwhile, great masses of people of conventional thought are created every day). And, there are activists who attack the problem head on in various ways but other than getting knocked in the head and arrested affect change on the rarest of occasions and lasting change only once or twice in an era. Another model I’ve seen is that of the hermit and/or ascetic who basically turns off and drops out. That option has long held appeal to me, but you wouldn’t know it given my current life of material comfort and luxury (which has little to no correlation with my output of corporeal ambition and fortitude—and that, interestingly, has also been true for a good chunk of my life). That option seems to be the most tenable but would require an initial swim against the flow of my current web of relationships. I would have to be courageous enough to be a kook.

Am I simply deluded? I think about a friend of mine and college classmate, who is probably one of the most sincere and good hearted guys I’ll ever know. His parents fled Vietnam (ironically, one of those third world countries we bombed the shit out of for dubious reasons) and came to the U.S. as part of the emigration of the “boat people.” His dad ran a convenience store (if not that plus other businesses, but my point is he totally bootstrapped his way up the economic ladder that is/was unique to the U.S.) His dad made enough to put his son through the same expensive, private school that I went to and during my friend’s senior year was shot and killed. My friend, in the meantime, persevered and got his business degree, took a low paying, state government job and over the years by busting his ass, wholeheartedly applying himself, and shining in front of the right people has parlayed that beginning into a multi-million dollar consultancy gig. Plus, he is a master of stock trading and takes great delight in making a killing off the stock market swings that have paralyzed everyone else’s 401(k)s.

For the same expensive education (which I still haven’t finished paying for 15 years later), I’ve learned about the disparate relationship between the first and third world (and minority “worlds” in first world countries). I’ve learned to see ideology disguised as reality, and I’ve finally found a degree of satisfaction in hitting what I think is a bedrock layer of the source of the world’s problems (the ones that bother me so much, I mean). Other than alienating and depressing people, what else can I do in the world while honoring these concerns? Or do I somehow quit them cold turkey or replace them with something else?