The sun isn’t as bright as it was yesterday. The color tone of the sky through the blinds of my bedroom window is always the first thing I notice when I awaken. It’s overcast and feels colder than yesterday. My room isn’t well insulated so the cold always creeps in and claims the space for it’s own. I question wether I’m tired enough to fall back asleep and check in with my body. Turns out, I’m up. I grab my phone off the night stand to see if I’ve missed anything while I was asleep. This time, just instagram notifications. Senseless memes sent by my friends. The first message is a video of someone falling in a funny way, captured by their ring doorbell camera. Next is a video of a lion in the African wilderness, skillfully gripping a gazelle’s throat in its mouth while the poor thing submits and awaits its death. Then a picture of some beautiful girl’s ass. I get out of the group chat and swipe over to my feed. I scroll past something amazing, something funny, an ad, something educational, something thoughtful, another ad, something borderline pornographic, an ad, a selfie of someone from high school I’ve lost contact with, something terrible, ad, ad. I notice a felling of disgust arise out of instagram’s constant attempt to sell me. Every meme page I follow sells merch all of a sudden, and every individual I follow is selling themselves. Attention seems so desperately and shamelessly gained on platforms like this. This vehicle for voluntary exploitation also happens to be a major way I keep in contact with my friends from all over, which somewhat anchors me to it. As I lay here thinking, I wonder how many others are looking at the same infinite and mostly senseless content, having no idea wether what they’re seeing is real, fabricated, or completely fake, but are buying it all regardless. Marshal McLuhan said “media (in all it’s forms) is an extension of or senses”, and if that’s true, would someone deny the reality of their own taste, sight, smell ect.? Maybe given certain circumstances, but rarely.
I finally get out of bed after a solid 20 minutes goes by, and stumble to the bathroom with stiff limbs. I flick on the light, and see my exhausted face in the mirror with a look of complete dissatisfaction about being awake. My eyes aren’t fully open, and my hair looks like I fell asleep in the passenger seat of a convertible all night. Self consciousness sets in, “you’ll never see this shit on instagram”, I say to myself, and flash a middle finger to my reflection. I brush my teeth, fix my fucked up hair, get dressed, and walk down the loud shifty stairs of the townhouse I’m renting. My roommate is passed out on the couch in the living room, snoring, with the tv still on from last night. I hear a commercial begin to play as I’m putting my shoes. “nothing… nothing… Absolutely nothing…. It really is something. As an Expedia member, you could save up to 30% when you add a hotel to your flight, so you can have a bit more money to do even less. Because you got a whole lot of nothing to do, and absolutely nowhere to be”. I breath out a condescending laugh at my perceived audacity of the message. “Nothing to do and absolutely nowhere to be? I see what Expedia thinks of their customers.” I think to myself. I walk out the door wondering if most people relate to that message. Do most people lack that much purpose in what they do and actually relate to that message?
It’s 2 degrees outside. I hastily walk to my truck, unlock the door, and sit on my icy seat. The windshield washer fluid pump isn’t getting power to it, so I can’t use antifreeze to break up the ice that formed overnight. I blast heat through the defrosters, wait for the car play to connect, and open up YouTube to finish Jordan Peterson’s podcast with Michael Malice. I left off where they’re discussing the concept of who holds the higher position of power in our country, media, or government? Malice says, “during Trump’s presidency, if you were a Democratic politician holding a position in government, and hated Trump’s guts, but didn’t think he colluded with Russia, you couldn’t have voiced that opinion without being made an example of by CNN and ABC. In turn, you would be outcasted by your own political party and your career would be over, therefore it’s obvious who’s controlling who”. Malice’s argument rang true to me, and caused me to reflect on the society I’m participating in. How may people have considered who’s really behind all the narratives that are sent down every media pipeline? Or does that though just get me labeled as a conspiracy theorist? How many people just let major media sources do their thinking for them, and how many people actually hold a nuanced opinion? These last few years have made it abundantly clear how much power the major news sources still have. It’s like people forgot that power and profit are always the motivation behind every message we get on our tv, computer, and cell phone. Like propaganda just stopped existing all together. It seems like no one really cares to know the answer to this within themselves. Our whole lives take place on one screen or another anyways.
My windshield finally defrosts enough that I can begin driving. As I pull out of the parking lot, onto the street, I notice that even my windshield reminds me of a screen. Considering Plato’s concept of Form, he would say ,“a windshield expresses screen-ness by its very nature”. It is a rectangular shape made of glass through which we get a certain view of the world. It creates a degree of separation between us and what we are seeing through it, just like our phones, computers, or tv’s do. I believe we’re so used to looking through screens that what we’re seeing behind a windshield doesn’t always register as real life. Which is why people scream at others from behind a wheel like they’re yelling at a football game on tv. Or when we’ve barley swerved out of the way of hitting a deer, and just avoided a situation that could have cost us or someone else their life, the event is totally out of mind by the time we make it to our destination. Screen-ness seems to inherently create a degree of separation, or a disassociation between us, and what we’re seeing through it.
It only takes me 10 minutes to get to the gym. I feel some excitement to stretch out and sweat for a bit. Exercise always mutes my existential dread for a little while. My therapy is spending time in my internal sacred space, and turning focus within. When I arrive, the parking lot is full. I eventually find a spot and walk in. I see the front desk guy with eyes wide and shining from the reflection of the computer he’s looking at. He never looks away from the screen to make eye contact with me as I approach. Still, he senses me through his peripheral and lifts up the scanner to scan my key card. “Beep”. “Have a good workout” he mumbles. I say nothing and put my headphones in as I make my way to the turf to begin stretching. I put on some music, look up from my phone, and am immediately smacked in the face by the reflection social media trends playing out in real life. You see all the latest gym styles that have been prescribed through marketing. Women have been convinced that the best and most effective activewear is bright colored, skin tight yoga pants, with a seam down the ass crack. Not because they add any benefit to working out, but to accentuate both cheeks in their individual glory for a pleasing, and sometimes not so pleasing aesthetic. As for the guys, its short and colorful gym shorts, vibrantly loud shoes, and the same hair cut as every other guy underneath a bass pro shop hat. This is how you posture to everyone that you’re serious about working out. Everyone eventually finds their way in front of a mirror to shamelessly pose and take unnecessary amounts of pictures of themselves. As if they are worshiping their own image that’s filtered through their hand held rectangular portal to their reality thats realer than any localized place. The realest reality is only seen through the crystal ball of the iPhone. No one forgets to post their favorite workout pics on instagram, snapchat, Facebook, ticktock, and twitter, and use their favorite hash tags like, #gymlife, #gymshark, #hardwork, #getafterit, #someonepleaselookatme. This is the modern way in which in people communicate with their community. Localized community within society had died shortly after I was born. There is only scattered remanence of community now. I keep my head down and try not to pay attention to my surroundings. A lonely sadness blooms inside me like a cactus flower in a desert night. An expression only found in the darkness under the moon, and closes up in the daylight. Not for anyone else’s perception but my own. I brush off the feeling by lifting something heavy.
I finish my workout and leave the gym actually feeling slightly better. I begin the journey to whole foods, and put on a podcast to direct my attention to something useful. I prefer to listen to familiar voices of people I’ll never personally know, but who’s content makes me feel sane. For me it’s the only way to not feel so alone in the chaos of the hyper real. I say a prayer to myself and the world, and hope whole foods has my favorite Mac and cheese at the hot bar.