Part 4 of the story with the phrase of the day

Part 4 of the story with the phrase of the day

The phrase of the day has nothing to do with the story: If the drugs don’t kill us, the chemicals will.

And on to the story:

Dave got along with everyone. If people still used the term popular Dave’s picture would be in the dictionary alongside the word. His relationship with Mr. Samson grew and Mr. Samson’s business grew. Dave knew and Dave didn’t care. Dave didn’t succumb to greed. He didn’t feel altruistic either. Dave just enjoyed doing things with people. If others received some benefit from their interactions then all the better.

Dave built relationships amongst all the levels. Some helped him in his endeavors, some became friendships, and some came and went. Dave did play games on occasions with other people, however, there general tendency to want to play the more debase games turned Dave away.

Dave even built relationships with the bottom dwellers. In fact, Dave spent quite a bit of time at the ground level. Dave explored the structure of all that was ever built. The more Dave explored, the more Dave studied topics like construction and engineering. He studied geology. And he talked to the bottom dwellers. They showed him much.

The more he explored and studied, the more he struggled with one decision. Even though Dave had great relationships, he really didn’t have a high opinion of his fellow humans. At times he thought the bottom dwellers were the better people. At least they understood living. Their life was terrible and at times he struggled with their condition, yet he saw them help each other to survive. The formed communities. They created rules to live by and if another community infringed on their territory or their rules they would fight to protect their sovereignty. He didn’t like they resorted to violence or other extreme behaviors when it came to the treatment of women. He wished they could work out their differences.They had their communities, it had a hierarchy based on brute strength, but it worked in a crude way. He read history so he knew humanity stooped to this behavior. He wished he could find ways to mediate the struggles of the bottom dwellers. Or more importantly the completely unnecessary wars run by the elite or top level people. He saw their mass murders of random people to match the death toll in their simulated war games a complete waste of life. He did not know which was better. He even tried to apply the word civilized to the different situations in his head. The word just didn’t work for anything he saw at any level.

He wondered how the elites became the elites. And what had created this caste system of living based on what level you were born into. The writers of human history disappeared at some point. He could not find material that discussed humanity past the era when humanity began building up. He found some discussions about the need, but mostly he found the material about building. He studied these writings intently. He looked for the clues in what they did to explain what he observed.

At times Dave would try to engage Mr. Samson about history. He asked many questions. Mr. Samson did not know much past a certain point. Mr. Samson avoided these conversations as much as he could for two reasons. One they weren’t productive for his business and two it made him think about things he did not want to think about. Somewhere in the back of Mr. Samson’s mind something did matter about the human condition. He pushed these thoughts back convincing himself they were unimportant. Dave’s desire to push this envelope bothered Mr. Samson greatly. He steered the conversation as best as possible away from these topics with Dave. If Dave pushed it, he would comment for a moment to keep Dave happy so he could bring Dave back to business and his needs.

Dave saw the struggle in Mr. Samson’s face when he broached certain topics. He wanted to pursue them all the more. Dave needed to tell someone who might understand what he saw, yet doubt existed as to what Mr. Samson might do, if anything.

Dave kept working, exploring, observing, interacting, reading, studying, with everyone and everything. The years went by and Dave slowly became aware he was not young anymore. He felt the drag on his body now going from level to level. He slowed down. For years he had explored much of the surrounding territory in many different types of transportation that existed on the different levels. He also knew that he only explored a small portion of the planet. Dave had explored and studied enough to know the planet was very similar now. It didn’t use to be and at one point there was more land than cities. Now it was one giant city next to another forming some type of larger territory ruled by certain elites called governors. This was a different set of elites than the people like Mr. Samson and seemed to take their orders from Mr. Samson’s group even though the general populace of each territory treated them as the ultimate leader of the territory. Some things worked out strangely and made no sense in their current arrangement.

And what he observed from the very beginning was getting worse. Each year wore on him and seemed to wear on everything else. He knew he needed to make a decision. He did not like any of the choices in his mind. Something was going to give and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to try and fix the problem or just let things play out or even possibly accelerate the problem, maybe bring it to its own conclusion. Was it right for him to make this decision? He read much. Some of it came from great teachers of the past. He wished he could have had a teacher to help guide him through life. Now though, he had their teachings and a question that as time wore on pressed on him like the weight of the buildings pressed on the earth. He read more and more on a topic called philosophy. He still did not find the answer he needed.  The need to make a decision dominated his daily thoughts. Why must he decide he thought? Time will take care of itself, yet he knew he could help if people would listen. Did he want to help?

Dave went to Mr. Samson to talk about many things, yet he did not bring up his concern. Mr. Samson had no idea how important the conversation was to his life and well being. Maybe just maybe if he had picked up on the signals Dave was trying to test it might have gone different. Over the years Dave became angry at humanity. He still loved interacting with people, but the whole story of humanity bothered him. The conversation with Mr. Samson did not change his feelings. Yet, he couldn’t decide what to do.

To be continued.