Author: Gary Beck Source: https://www.polseguera.com/writers/writing-515_fractional-disorder.html Fractional Disorder Gary Beck/Fractional Disorder   Dread In the prevailing climate of imminent destruction of civilization, it may no longer be in our nature to save ourselves before it is too late.   Exploration I will no longer go down to the river, follow its flow to the embracing sea, stand at the water's edge, hunger the farther shore where pleasure or peril waits, uncertainty dismissed in the need for discovery.   Origins Despite all doubts about the inherent goodness of mankind, we never could endure if evil predominated in what for many is a demanding life, thus rewarding the fundamental nature of most of us who would rather build then destroy.   Parallel Roman citizens might have paused on a beautiful summer day on cobbled streets for a moment of enjoyment, even after the Goths took over imitating Romans with their barbarian ways. Yet human nature is constant and only the deepest despair prevents interludes of pleasure no matter how dire conditions become.   Nothing Changes Despite evolution, thousands of years of progress, hundreds of years of industrial development, most of us are needy, many of us are desperate and wealth accrues to the few who do not share and begrudge help to those struggling to survive the disease of poverty, loss of jobs, loss of homes, a criminal abuse of the human condition in a purported democracy.   'Fractional Disorder' is an unpublished collection that examines the anomalies, frequently unnoticed, that confound us.