The Parliamentary Dance of Mediocrity: A Chronicle of Modern Democracy's Decline

In the grand theater of democratic mediocrity that is the Canadian House of Commons, we witness yet another manifestation of the eternal struggle between those who would maintain the comfortable slumber of the masses and those who fancy themselves awakened to some higher purpose. The parliamentary chambers, those hallowed halls where the last men gather to perpetuate their own importance, now find themselves ensnared in a web of their own making.

Behold how they scramble like ants in their artificial hill! These politicians, these self-proclaimed guardians of the public good, what are they but shepherds of mediocrity? They debate and deliberate while the very foundations of their authority crumble beneath their feet.

The land of the sleepers extends far beyond the parliamentary walls, where citizens rest in blissful ignorance of the bureaucratic machinery that grinds ever slower. Their representatives engage in what they call debate, but is truly naught but a dance of shadows, each seeking to cast their opponent into darkness while claiming the light for themselves.

Speaker Fergus, that appointed arbiter of procedural righteousness, stands before his flock like a priest before his congregation, reminding them of their sacred deadlines and obligations. Yet what are these deadlines but artificial constraints, invented by the weak to give structure to their purposeless existence?

See how they cling to their procedures and traditions! These are the chains they have forged for themselves, the comfortable prison in which they willingly dwell. They speak of deadlines while time itself mocks their petty urgencies.

The supplementary estimates, that grand testament to bureaucratic excess, lay waiting like a sacrificial lamb upon the altar of democracy. Twenty-one billion pieces of silver, to be distributed among the faithful departments who maintain the great slumber of the masses. Treasury Board President Anita Anand, that priestess of fiscal propriety, warns of impending doom should these sacred numbers not receive their proper blessing.

Yet what is most revealing is how these modern last men speak of "cash management" and "contingency planning" - the very language of those who would rather maintain their comfortable existence than dare to reach beyond it. They scramble to preserve their systems, their routines, their precious order, while the very chaos they fear might be the force needed to awaken them from their dogmatic slumbers.

How they fear the abyss of uncertainty! These bureaucrats and politicians, these last men who blink and say "we have invented happiness" - their happiness is but the absence of risk, the negation of growth through struggle.

The opposition parties, those self-proclaimed champions of accountability, are themselves merely players in this grand farce. They seek documents about green technology projects - as if these papers might contain some truth that could pierce the veil of collective complacency. Yet they too are bound by the very rules they claim to challenge, trapped in the circular logic of parliamentary procedure.

And what of the people, those sleeping masses who await their government benefits, their dental programs, their refugee services? They slumber peacefully, dreaming of security while their representatives engage in theatrical combat within their marble halls. They know not that their comfort is but another link in the chain that binds them to mediocrity.

The truly awakened one sees through this pageant of democracy, this ritual of the weak. Where are those who would dare to transcend these petty squabbles? Where are those who would rise above the morass of procedure and tradition to forge new values, new paths?

As the winter approaches and the threat of departmental cash shortages looms, we see the true nature of this system - a complex web of interdependencies designed to maintain the status quo, to prevent any single voice from rising too far above the choir of mediocrity. The bureaucrats scurry about, seeking ways to stretch their budgets, to maintain the illusion of control over chaos.

And so the dance continues, the eternal return of the same patterns, the same debates, the same fears. The Speaker urges cooperation, the parties maintain their positions, and the machinery of government grinds ever onward, producing nothing but the appearance of progress while maintaining the great sleep of the masses.

Let them continue their dance of procedure and privilege, their ritual of rules and regulations. For in their very struggle to maintain order, they reveal the weakness at the heart of their system - a weakness that can only be overcome by those who dare to dream beyond the boundaries of their comfortable cage.

The time approaches when man will no longer shoot the arrow of his longing beyond man, when the string of his bow will have forgotten how to whir! I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.