American Corporate Sophistication: The Silent Killer

America prides itself on sophistication and technological advances. We are superior to the unsophisticated “savage” nations of hunter gatherers who spend their days trudging through the dirt to tackle buffalo. Instead we stay up until midnight checking emails and watching Netflix, all the while complaining about how busy we are. We then wake up before the sun rises, thank you smart phone, and put on the most ridiculously boring and "professional" outfits. We get in cars or on buses and start the silent commute to our super sophisticated classy jobs, hence why we must wear our super sophisticated classy clothes. After what seems like days of sitting in unyielding traffic, we finally make it to our respective offices. We take off our jackets, turn on computers and grab some coffee. 

The day has begun.

Each day brings more of the same, more packages to deliver, more emails to send, more documents to check, more events to plan. You count down the minutes until 5, the days until Friday and the years until retirement, waiting, watching, in your fancy clothes, for your life to actually begin. Occasionally, a shimmer of light shines through the dull gray monotony of your life, and makes you excited about your work. You start with renewed energy and vigor, determined to work as hard as you can and leave the place better. But then you work too fast, leaving nothing left for the duration of the week, or you work too hard leaving only a sore back and more manual labor to complete. Slow and steady wins the race, and slow and slower make it through the week. And so it goes, the minutes click slowly by, as your fluorescent lit computer screen becomes your only friend. 

Your day dreams are filled with tackling buffalo, or herding up your half dozen kids that run wild through the woods. Staring at a blank screen you long for theologically rich, meaningful and intense conversations, but settle for small talk about work –appropriate topics. You want to scream at the top of your lungs and shatter the sterile walls before you, but you don’t. As the day ends, you grab what is left of your soul, and go to face traffic. You arrive home and start to prepare for the next day.

Days turn into weeks, weeks months, and months, years. Hypnotized by monotony you join the throng of the walking dead. You have become a mere fragment of the free-spirit you once were, battered and beaten by sophisticated polite society. Although you don’t have a lot of fight left, somewhere deep inside, safely hidden, the “savage” part of your soul sleeps waiting to wake up again.

“Wake up sleeper, Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine light on you!”