Space Travel, 21st Century Style.

[East Coast Hustle]

What if some of us think we can reach our own conclusion without being "trained" by someone else?

Well then you're either NOT a monkey or, more likely, you're one of those monkey's who's just clever enough to THINK he's not a monkey and is therefore quite dangerous.

Also, addressing the bolded part of the question, how many of you are there?

[Triple Zero]

Aww is there someone out there preventing you actualizing your potential?
    /


Seriously though, what the hell are you talking about?

"I honestly think that I have nothing left to add, in this rant or otherwise.  Empty space has no appreciation for that sort of thing, and neither do the monkeys that I one day dreamt of training."

No, no one is preventing me from anything.

Just a tiny bit of terminology before go very downhill:

There's monkeys, and there's bipeds. Is two different things.
If you're busy trying to reach your own conclusion about everything, you might just be a biped (though not necessarily).
Monkeys as a metaphor doesn't always mean all people on this world, everywhere.

[Salty]

Some people are always on the look for a guiding hand, whether there's one or not, so they can follow it.

Some people are always looking for a guiding hand, whether there's one or not, so they can bite it.

They're the actions of the same sort of mind. One obsessed with obedience one way or another.


Though in all fairness I should disclose that Chuck fucking Phalaniuk told me I had a chip on my shoulder.

[Triple Zero]

Alty nailed it.

[Doktor Howl]

What if some of us think we can reach our own conclusion without being "trained" by someone else?

Then you're probably a human and not a monkey.

I fail to see the conflict, here.

[Doktor Howl]

No pain, no regret, no need to apologize to myself or anyone else for the actions of others.  This is my Goddamn asteroid and those are my Goddamn monkeys, and if anyone doesn't like that, or feels the need to manufacture some form of insult out of what I've said, that's simply not my fucking problem.  Go get your own Goddamn asteroid.

[memy]

Nothing makes sense here anymore! We're always headed to something else and it really is something else, but it's never by choice.

A cop took my license a bit ago, I'm forced to have my significant other drive me around and that person doesn't exactly fan the flame in my heart 99% of the time. A couple days later I tried to buy a pack of cigarettes, but forgot I had no ID. I know, I know, it's just an excuse to hold a lighter close to my face and try to suck in some hot shit through a tube filter and call it soul food, and sometimes a cigar isn't a cigar. That all got shot down by a case of bad timing and an unpaid court fine. It's like he descended on a string, deus ex machina style, and just stamped DENIED on my pack of unlit matches, drenching them in red ink. By law my flames are kept at bay.

Anyway, my partner is driving to work with a learner's permit, so I must go as a hand-holding chaperone, and we pass a corner store, windows plastered in wrinkled papers, a perfect insulation of old-time convenience, only now the A-shaped sign outside doesn't just advertise phillycheesesteaks but tacos and burritos and pupusas, hot and fresh for the latino construction workers who are building the upscale townhouses next door. I feel so out of place.

Across the street from the tiny spit-wad of a shop are huge multi-level houses, half-naked, waiting for some rich family to move into them, only to leave every day for an hour-long commute to an even bigger steel building in D.C. or Tysons Corner or McLean depending on just how rich they intend to be. I feel so out of place.

The insulation is exposed on these future-houses. I guess I feel like this is where I belong, I just don't want to. In a sense that I will end up there no matter how uncomfortable it makes me. I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, either way it's shit. This rock is getting harder to see, it's getting covered with composite materials, plastic, steel, and tar, spires propping up daily like cold hard cocks, (not even that, more like dildos,) challenging the sky, challenging my comparatively tiny body, no matter how warm it promises to be to the people around me. The world is transforming into something with an alien geometry.

Who wants me where I am? Who wants me where I plan to go? I want to go to Colorado, not just because weed is legalized (another excuse to suck a hot stick into my body like it will really actually melt my heart for real this time) but because I get free tuition at a college there as a member of a Native American tribe. My land! Only it's not our land, it's their land, and they took it from us in exchange for free knowledge. Like I can build a house out of college credits and make a bed there at night. Maybe I can if I play the game for enough years.

I am unemployed. I am 22. My partner can't afford our rent. I don't love like I did before. My dad died around Christmastime last year and my family has dissolved into our own individual poverties. I don't quite know what world I'm living in anymore.

Well, a rock is a rock until it decides to just be an asshole and build some psychic armor so you forget what it was to begin with. Then it's just a hard place all around. Whatever that is supposed to be. To me, our asteroid turned itself into a spaceship a long time ago, and no one is at the controls (or maybe someone is but it's not me), and it gets harder and harder to resist going into a long-term hibernation like some other passengers have. Are we waiting for some kind of autopilot evolution to just spring up on us, saying "thanks for waiting, primates, welcome to heaven!" What's the difference between that and waiting for death? I have to DO something before then, definitely, but I can't seem to get to the place where I actually want to do it.

In the meantime, the landscaping company here is TOO good at their job! They come in with leaf-blowers by the hour to sweep away the leaves and tin cans and rubble so I can't see it anymore. Space travel, 21st Century Style, is by definition supposed to be clean as a whistle you're not allowed to blow.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring. I plan on staying awake for it in case I find a rock to trip on for once, because it sure isn't here. There are no gates of hell to trip at anymore, but people like to think there's still plenty to flip out about. Does any of that make sense? I'd be surprised if it did, because to me nothing makes sense here anymore.

[The Rev]

What if some of us think we can reach our own conclusion without being "trained" by someone else?

Well then you're either NOT a monkey or, more likely, you're one of those monkey's who's just clever enough to THINK he's not a monkey and is therefore quite dangerous.

Also, addressing the bolded part of the question, how many of you are there?

At last count, no less than 10 distinct and different personalities! 

[The Rev]

What if some of us think we can reach our own conclusion without being "trained" by someone else?

Then you're probably a human and not a monkey.

I fail to see the conflict, here.

AH, I missed the distinction.

[The Rev]

Aww is there someone out there preventing you actualizing your potential?
    /


Seriously though, what the hell are you talking about?

"I honestly think that I have nothing left to add, in this rant or otherwise.  Empty space has no appreciation for that sort of thing, and neither do the monkeys that I one day dreamt of training."

No, no one is preventing me from anything.

Just a tiny bit of terminology before go very downhill:

There's monkeys, and there's bipeds. Is two different things.
If you're busy trying to reach your own conclusion about everything, you might just be a biped (though not necessarily).
Monkeys as a metaphor doesn't always mean all people on this world, everywhere.

Not sure if I'll ever get promoted to biped. Some days I just can't decide whether to scream like a monkey or to shit in my hand and throw it. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Excellent OP!