The Sun, The Sea, and The Last Buffet

I’ve been treated to a resort vacation by a close family member as it was the only way I would get to see them this year. I am situated somewhere in the endless parade of industrial-size resorts that line the beautiful peninsulas of Halkidiki from east to west, north to south like a metastatic plague of concrete monoliths amongst the otherwise lush, dense, ancient pine woodland. As forests in Canada forever burn to the ground, forests in Halkidiki during this time of year are populated by three types of humans: rich tourists seeking chlorinated pools and margarine-tasting croissants, Gen Z serving coffees in what was supposed to be a summer job that lasted 3 years, and undocumented workers at the beach next door, hacking away like woodpeckers as they prepare the next generation of resorts to be erected on this martyred land.

Looking at the clientele across the breakfast buffet, it is clear that these people didn’t come here either for the sea or sun. They used this vacation as an excuse to eat like the pigs that they already are. Most of them already have one foot in the grave as they shuffle their feet from one buffet station to the next, filling up their plates. It is a metaphor for humanity’s sad state of self-undoing. These parents are only in their early 40s but can barely walk. Their pre-school toddlers are following them from one buffet station to the next, learning mother’s hunting skills: put some of this jam on top, like this. Sprinkle some of these M&Ms on top, like that. Oh, look. Donuts. There are 8 types of sugar-fortified milk on the dairy buffet, but only two types of diabetes. Biology is simple. When you die you die, rich or poor, soy or coconut milk.

It is incredible what happens to a human once you place them in a buffet situation: they will overfill their plate and leave behind piles of uneaten food. Greed, by definition, knows no measure. Excess is the rule, and waste is the outcome. This civilisation is eating through its buffet so quickly that the restaurant is going out of business.

The doors to the outside terrace of the buffet stay wide open all day even though the air conditioning is blasting full speed inside. Same for the reception, and every other major building in the resort complex. You would think that by now, this sort of practice would have become a jailable offense. But not if obese oligarchs are paying top dollar for their rooms, and not as long as the European Union is busy with other priorities, like sponsoring genocides. As long as this necrocapitalist psychonomy is determined to self-destruct, this civilisation will be air-conditioning itself using the carbon emission budget stolen from its unborn children.

Meanwhile “the children” will need to serve a lot more coffee and put on a lot more smiles before they can earn their stripes to deserve a front-row seat in this sinking ship. They should be happy. They are holding down one of the last jobs AI has left for them, clamouring for “summer internships” each year in Greece’s tourist industry so they can hopefully leap on to a more managerial role next year: head waiter.

On one hand, you see the forests: So seamlessly sustainable, ancient, diverse. A perfect, self-supporting superorganism. And nested within this, you see an aberration: this temporary fungal growth of invasive human colonies, growing like tumours, eating like amoebas, and expanding like viruses. We are living the last days of a multi-platinum, award-winning rock star: the glass is always kept full to the brim, the buffet is always open, and the cocaine is already lined up on the glass table by our tour manager. The heart attack is waiting to happen right around the corner, and induction into the Hall of Fame of Stupidity will be virtually automatic. The music will be replaced by AI folk renditions of top 100 Billboard chart hits of a civilisation that quickly shot to number one, then disappeared off the chart forever.

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