Sitting in my living room, having a beer with a neighbor (and my love), and thought I’d share the chat.

My neighbor, making small talk over his Corona Light, asks if we know that the Aborigines are killing themselves.

"Ah, of course," I say. "It only stands to reason. Eventually we all begin to imitate and support the American way."

He’s confused, of course. This isn’t what he meant.

No, they’re refusing to procreate, he explains. Apparently, the world is just too horrible. Who can blame them?

The love of my life says this is hubris. "Do they think they’re better than everyone else?"

"Yes! Yes, thank god," I chime in. "Isn’t that the only thing that drives us to be decent — to be better than all of this?"

Our neighbor tells us that they have a tradition of a walkabout, in which they travel about looking for spiritual guidance. It’s like a vision quest.

I explain that there’s a film about this, a documentary that follows one boy’s/man’s walkabout. Is this true? Or did I make it up. The only film I found by google (because it’s now a verb and many other things) is certainly not a documentary. Oh, well, false information once again. (Such pain and humiliation.)

I’m saved by an even more ridiculous prospect. "There’s a movie called Vision Quest. It’s about a wrestler."

(He’s trying to be ridiculous, and doing so well. That’s the brilliance.)

"There was a really hot chick in it."

We go back to the Aborigines. (With an interjection of her name: Linda Fiorentino. It figures.) "They’ve been around for a long time." (No shit!) "Their name literally means ‘Real People’."

Things have just gotten too hard, and they’ve concluded that they can no longer go on the way they used to.

"Well, have they ever considering finding a new way to go on? They call it adapting."

The love of my life gets agitated. Hubris. Hubris. Who do they think they are to stand in the way of change? Who do they think they are to refuse their most basic human instinct, to reproduce?

Who do they think they are?

You tell me. I don’t know. Change is beautiful and necessary. It is everything. Almost everything. But where do you draw the line and say, no! This flow must stop! This is not the right way! Where? When?

ARE YOU OUTAGED, AWED, OR FLOORED? SEND ME YOUR RANTINGS (within reason), AND I’LL CONSIDER IT FOR PUBLICATION.