One of my favorite comic strips, which I actually have up on the
wall of my office, has a bar customer telling the bartender,
”
I feel so much better since I gave up …
”
The bartender interrupts to complete the thought:
”
Drinking?
”
”
No,
”
says the customer,
”
I just gave up.
”
One of my favorite comic strips, which I actually have up on the wall of my office, has a bar customer telling the bartender, “I feel so much better since I gave up …” The bartender interrupts to complete the thought: “Drinking?” “No,” says the customer, “I just gave up.”
I would like to give up, so can somebody tell me, is there a form to fill out or someone I can surrender to, or what? I would like to give up resisting all the stuff with which we are constantly bombarded that seems to me, well, for want of a better word, dumb. Take consumer technology, for instance; go ahead, take it, I dare you.
I want to succumb to the saturation advertising for the vast conveyor belt of consumer electronics those busy beavers in Geekland are constantly dreaming up. I want to be among those hip young people in the TV ads who talk to each other on cell phones even though they’re in the same room. I want to be like the young couple who only have two pieces of furniture in their entire apartment, but they buy a $5,000 flat-screen television to hang on their barren wall.
I want to call people for no reason other than to use up my “free” minutes. I need to wish I could access the Internet on my laptop while dropping down the face of a 30-foot wave at the Banzai Pipeline or undergoing a heart transplant. I want to desire video games so violently realistic that I need medical attention when I lose.
I need a reason to buy a phone that takes pictures or even video. They’re so handy; in fact, I understand that Peter Jackson filmed the entire third movie in “The Lord Of The Rings” trilogy on a series of cell phones with an army of assistants following him up mountains and down rivers all over New Zealand constantly replacing the batteries. If I had one of those I could take pictures all day like in the commercials – stupid stuff, lame stuff – and instantly send them to any number of people who would really want to see them. “Look, here’s a picture of mud on my shoe.” “Look, here’s a picture of the guy sitting next to me at the diner.” Let me tie up some of the time you apparently have too much of showing you how clever I am with my telephone.
I want to spam all my friends and acquaintances with a hearty selection of the almost-jokes, nearly-inspiring stories, and pseudo-incisive commentary floating around the Internet with labels like “This Is SOOO Cute!” and “You Gotta Read This One!” and “Thought-Provoking!” Can’t have too much of that kind of cerebral stimulation.
I want to sit in meetings or classes or court with my phone in my lap, thumbs working overtime as I silently and laboriously text-message people without those around me knowing that I’m paying no attention to what I’m supposed to be doing. I want to spend a lot of time learning and keeping up with the ever-changing symbology used to abbreviate conversations so I don’t have to retain the ability to spell whole words. Eventually my entire vocabulary could shrink down to the two or three hundred catchwords and acronyms that are most handy for the text-messaging of utter trivia. After all, the point of electronic communication has long since ceased to be the transfer of worthwhile information; now we’re supposed to communicate just to use the equipment. The medium has literally become the message.
I want to be part of all that. I want to embrace the tidal wave of hypnotizing electronic gizmos that is the future; I want to blissfully disappear into my very own Matrix. If only I could get past the feeling that it’s all just so – dumb.