Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.

Hear, O listener, the bitter yet piercing words of Timothy Leary: “Civilization is unbearable, but it is less unbearable at the top.” These words are not the careless musings of a wanderer but the cry of one who beheld the structures of society and saw their cruelty laid bare. For what men call civilization is often a bargain struck with suffering: rules and hierarchies that restrain freedom, burdens of labor that weigh upon the many, and privileges that shelter only the few. Leary unmasks the truth—that the pains of human order do not fall evenly upon all, but are softened for those who climb to the heights while they crush those who remain at the bottom.

To call civilization unbearable is to speak of its demands: the loss of innocence, the submission to law, the ceaseless toil for survival, the surrender of wild freedom to the machines of society. Yet even in its harshness, some find comfort. For at the top, power cushions hardship, wealth buys leisure, and influence shields from the worst of life’s storms. Thus, the rulers, the wealthy, the privileged endure civilization not because it is just, but because its weight is carried by others beneath them.

Consider the tale of Ancient Egypt. For centuries, the pyramids rose in splendor, monuments to the glory of pharaohs. Yet beneath their stones lay the sweat of thousands of laborers, who toiled under the sun, their backs bent and their lives consumed. To the pharaoh, civilization was radiant, adorned with jewels and eternal tombs. To the slave, it was a burden near unbearable. The structure was one, but its weight was borne unequally. Thus Leary’s words echo through time: civilization is less cruel to those who dwell in its palaces than to those who struggle in its fields.

Think also of the Industrial Revolution. In the factories of Europe, children labored in smoke-choked rooms, men and women collapsed from endless work, and families starved despite their toil. Meanwhile, the owners of the mills amassed fortunes, dining in halls of marble while their workers lived in squalor. The same civilization that promised progress and modernity was unbearable for the poor, yet tolerable—indeed profitable—for those at the top.

Yet let us not only lament; let us draw wisdom. Leary’s words are not only critique but challenge. If civilization is to be truly bearable, its burdens must be shared with justice, and its fruits must be offered to all. A society where only the privileged can endure is a society built on sand, destined to collapse under the weight of its inequities. History has shown this: revolutions rise, thrones fall, and the voices of the oppressed break through when suffering grows too great.

The lesson, then, is clear. Seek not only to rise for yourself, but to lift others with you. If you stand at the top, do not grow blind to those beneath. Use your strength, your wealth, your voice, not to make civilization merely less unbearable for you, but to make it more bearable for all. If you stand below, let not despair devour you, but strive for justice, unity, and courage, knowing that every great transformation has been born from the cry of the many.

So I say to you, O child of tomorrow: do not accept a world where civilization is a cage for the poor and a garden for the rich. Work to balance its burdens, to share its gifts, and to make its promise real. For only then will Leary’s words lose their sting. Only then will we live not in a civilization that is “unbearable,” but in one where all, from the least to the greatest, may endure with dignity, and even flourish in hope.