dystopia

It’s here. After all the books and movies, after the private prognostications and punditry, it’s finally here. I suppose it really arrived in 2003. That’s the last time I remember the culture offering something fresh and lively, something that was in conversation – rather than in cynical cahoots – with whatever malevolent power turned into… this.

I got two mosquito bites at the rock climbing gym yesterday. I thought about Coral Cliffs’ proximity to Miami’s twin Ground Zeros. I thought of the multitudes of people who will get mosquito bites this weekend and every weekend after this. I thought about globalism and racism. I thought about the politics of holding public money hostage thereby holding whole populations of people hostage. I thought about waiting.

The last time I ran on the beach, it was perfect. I was fast. The sand was just packed enough, just loose enough. The wind was very light. I started at dawn and finished a half hour after sunrise. The sky was clear. The last time I swam at the beach, it was perfect. I’d just finished running. The water was dark and cool and clear. The sky was blue with silvery white clouds floating by.

This is how it is; a horror show of hubris punctuated by moments of perfect peace. It could be the other way around, you know.

the revolution will not be televised

Obviously. And yet, I keep watching, trying to see if hints, seeds of revolution will pop through the screen. Of course, the fundamental problem with screened revolutions is that we the people end up wanting the screen, not the ‘else’ or ‘elsewhere’ that real revolutions promise.

Another problem with this particular screened ‘revolution’ is that both the creators and many viewers (and reviewers) truly believe that because corrupt systems do, in fact, hold our lives together, to tear them down would be to tear ourselves down. So we might as well… what? Get a job in advertising?

We have to want something else. We have to want each other directly. We have to want – unmediated – the natural world around us, to struggle in it, balance ourselves with it. We have to trust ourselves and each other and not buy into the low self-esteem and fear they’ve shown/sold us.

There is no winning at this.

To play along is to play ourselves.

We must direct our attention, our energy, our selves elsewhere.

I wish I were better at taking my own advice, though. I’m still watching. And, I feel a bit let down, a bit betrayed. Even though I know it’s not the real thing, whenever I see shades of this unmediated, or, at least, less mediated life on the screen, it’s presented in a way that undermines it’s power, it’s possibility.