09-17-02
clearings
If you keep reinventing yourself over and over again, where do all of the old parts of your personality go? People are expected to be a constant in the world of change, steady in the face of revolving door news. Smile, wink, and nod. Caked in makeup the 5pm weather girl is no different than hot shots in suits or suburbanites in khakis. School is your life, your job is your life, your family is your life. Your life is not your own, ever. If you are one of the few celebrities who wears that smile extra tight to make sure it never turns upside down, would you ever throw it all away and work at a library? The new enlightenment is one of uselessness. How many numbers can you pull from the empty hat before you realize that it is empty? How much gossip can run rampant before the hampster gets tired of running in the wheel? Reality is hardly real. If you close your eyes it all goes black. The pencil, number 2, on the table made of real oak, with a lamp on it that contains a 40 watt lightbulb, which ultimately goes out robbing you of light. Close your eyes and it is all a distant memory, faded into the background while ideas float around like crackers in your soupy head. It's hard to believe that all of these things, the table, pencil, lamp, and table were made by someone. But even that is not true. They were all made by machines, thrown onto the assembly line, and shipped out as product. Consumers head to the one store where they can buy groceries, get their car fixed, and save money on toilet paper to buy the products that machines make. They might as well sit on the shelves themselves. The machines have made us, and pretty soon RobotSim1 will talk to RobotSim2 and wonder if they have any Mary in the cupboard at home. RobotSim1 will compute in .002342 seconds and then reply back in binary, "No, and pick up some Johnny while you're out". We are no smarter than the machines, and they are no smarter than us. Welcome to the future, where upgrading means learning the newest version of history at school, and recycling is saying you really are going to quit your addiction. I swear this time, it'll be different. |
