insert 2/15/08: Part Two of Four, sort of – Art by Everyone (1) , Volume Volume VOLUME! (3) and The Ascetic Aesthetic (4)
As appears in http://panzeepress.com/20071212.pdf
Quick – where’s your celfone?
Whew! Thank goodness. I’ll speculate – not unreasonably, I think – that more than half of you could reach out and touch your celfone without moving too much. A lot of safety there, you know – a lot of security, a lot of connections, a lot of you sitting in that tiny little piece of technology.
I feel it needless to waste our time describing all its accordant evil – I’ve an idealist’s certainty that you already know it, and know to what degree you still allow it for yourself. I’d rather reveal its pestilence as it rests in the same group as the iTunes player, the Blackberry, the video game, the Internet, television, and, well, you get the idea.
It begins with the eyes, you see…for all their “windows to the soul” stuff, they also roll out the big red carpet to the mind. Add the ears and you’ll stroll right in without a pause. You pay a price, though, as do we all when we engage our mind.
We place it in a context away from our brain.
We cherish our minds, of course, for they hold our definition, our character, our values, our everything. We hold dear to that component that defiantly insists our existence incorporates more than our physical characteristics. Our mind defines us as individuals, and we willingly place it outside our bodies at any given moment, for as long as we deem it necessary. We will, upon our choice, regard that which we elect to regard, wherever and whatever that may be.
Of course we all do. It surprises me not, given our capacity to empathize, to regard a perspective other than our own. We developed this as thinking beings, when we determined that working together gave us a better chance at surviving than killing each other all the time. (No, really, we learned the “not killing” part a long time ago.)
For a long time, even though we had our struggles, we mostly had to deal with each other face to face – our empathy and regard for each other included all five senses. As we advanced through the 20th century, communication and transportation sort of ran in parallel – train and telegraph, car and telephone, airplane and television. Then ______ and computer – “computer” in all its contexts, all its forms…
Each of us cannot exist alone. We exist in relation to others, only. Our minds, now, in the 21st century, are captured and shaped from infancy. We make demands of it that hold its immediate surroundings in contempt. You will, you 21st century human, define your existence for no one else will by choosing where you want to connect your mind.
Your pictures, your text messages, your music, your phone calls…”These are all the people in my Buddy List.” You chat, you gab, you reach out and connect to the network you’ve created for yourself.
Oh, and life sucks, too, right? And that same sense of empathy now distracts you, entertains you, gives you the circus to watch and the gladiators to spill the blood of those less capable. You engage, you empathize and fantasize and disregard the world around you, the people who share your space, your air, and your water.
Me, too – my version.
Does Al Gore really need to trot around and convince everyone that we’ve been fucking this planet? You’ve got your car, you’ve got your porn, you’ve got your celfone, you’ve got your little slice of heaven, that little place where you can shit, shower, eat, and explore the world safely only with your mind and let you define and distract yourself as you will.
All that want for connection remains unfulfilled, though, for your mind always knows when it’s not fully engaged by all five senses. Are you watching the moments when people connect, or are you giving the hairs on your arms the chance to feel the ionized air created by the people around you?
You buy your food from who knows where that’s been through who knows what. Where did the oat in that Cheerio start, and what’s it been through – how long ago – up to the moment you spooned it into your mouth? Multiply that by every other thing you ingest, every blanket, every shingle, every thing that you have. You disregard the planet, you disregard your surroundings, you disregard your neighbor, you grant no one the depth of existence you so defiantly insist on for yourself.
You don’t need to hear the birds sing – you have the right, goddammit, to create a personal list of all your favorite songs and carry them with you so your life has just the soundtrack you want! And all those – um, undeveloped? – countries will all know they’re REALLY MAKING IT when their middle class people can get a computer to carry around with their personal list of favorite songs playing in their ear to they can have the same thing. And cut themselves off, too.
Of course this reads caustically. Of course this reads as though I hold you in contempt. Of course I do not. What I do hold in contempt is our collective choice to keep on making the same ridiculous choice to not talk about what we’re doing to each other, to the planet we’re on…how the media we surround ourselves with and plug ourselves into trips us further and further away from that which we can touch, and always talks us into more. “Being in the moment” impacts us not only in time but in the greater proximity by which we can reach reality – when we can touch, feel, smell, with the eyes and the ears guiding the way as they will, in concert…
And again, I’ve an idealist’s certainty that you all already know all this, and I’m just the last fool to find it out. But you know, if that’s indeed the case, then I’m inclined to respond with, “Wel, then…wwwwwwwwwwwhatthefuck? You’ve all already known all this and we STILL haven’t had the discussion?”
Of course not. We dare not acknowledge among us all how all this mindfucking we’ve been doing with and to each other for years comes only from our fear of being alive, our fear of not being noticed, of not mattering, so we wear our technological dreamcoats and flash our best “Dig me!” smile…
…until you’re shot, or the water stops flowing from your spigot. Maybe not in your lifetime, but it’s in the voicemail, that’s for sure.
One Perspective 