The Way We Live Now: Realigning our expectations with reality. It's better to say that than to say that we're finally resigning ourselves to the soul-crushing exigencies of fate. Only Wal-Mart can save us now.

The job market, you see: It's changed. It's not you; it's reality. It's passed you by, never to return. But don't feel guilty about it.

The important thing now is to move on. To realign yourself with a new, darker future. Look for ways to make yourself useful in this world—or, failing that, to simply survive without being too much of a burden on your neighbors. Wal-Mart is giving $2 billion to fight world hunger. Can your hunger be a part of that? The Swiss are "Whittling Away at Banking Secrecy." Can you open your own secret bank catering to the superrich, to fill that void? Banks are duping ratings agencies. Can you invent some sort of drive-thru "ratings agency" to give banks whatever it is they want, for a fee?

These are just examples of the new types of outside-the-cage-of-reality thinking that you must do to survive and/or flourish in our post-humanity age. Are you willing to ambush and terrorize your fellow man in a cutthroat falafel war? Are you willing to sell every last ounce of your city's soul in exchange for the "big game?"

You better be willing to do all that, and more. Not because you have to. Because you want to. (More than you want to starve to death).
[Pic via]